


Anomie

by lexyhamilton (ohheichoumyheichou)



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Lovers, Homophobia, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Love/Hate, M/M, Racist Language, Road Trips, Slow Burn, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-10-23 05:43:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10713393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohheichoumyheichou/pseuds/lexyhamilton
Summary: John Abruzzi managed to get out of Fox River, returning to his life of crime, and planning to reunite with his family. There is only one nagging, angry thought about one of the other Fox River Eight that haunts him. He seeks T-Bag out, intending to kill him, but finds himself having to go on the run together instead. (Translation from Russian)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Anomie](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/285798) by Анри Кабье. 



> This is a favorite fic of mine, and I was just hoping to bring it to the English speaking audience. It's slow burn, but I think it's rewarding.  
> Note 1: This fic diverges from canon at season 1 episode 12 (when T-Bag sliced Abruzzi's neck): it is an AU where Abruzzi never took off T-Bag's hand with an axe and they went their separate ways after the escape.  
> Note 2: This fic was written in Russian, and while the author researched quite a lot about the US and the Arkansas/Alabama locale in particular, once in a while there are certain details that sound like something that would not realistically happen in the USA. I have translated as faithfully as I can without modifying these moments. I also aimed to preserve the author's original turn of phrase and ways of describing scenery and emotions as much as I could. If there are errors or it sounds awkward, I am to blame.

Soft furniture. A spacious two-story house. His own bedroom.

A shower to be taken any time, day or night.

Homecooked meals. Scotch and soda after dinner. Fresh, fragrant coffee in the morning.

And above all-- the quiet.

Over the last year, Fox River took on the air of something fictional. The idea of spending the rest of his life in that bedbug-ridden pen was slowly dissipating, melting away with each day spent outside of prison. He had managed to catch the end of the silken thread of this web he had been caught in and was counting on one day seeing it unraveled to the last knot. Only a bit more time, and he would find a way to meet with Sylvia and the children. How he had come to miss the imperceptible but enveloping warmth of his wife, the sunny smiles of Nicole and Johnny Jr. Family! You won't know how much you depend on your closest and dearest until you can no longer see them every day.  
.  
John could try to convince himself as much as he could that everything was fine. That, for him, it was completely par for the course to be hiding away in a nondescript mansion provided by that same "man with the airplane"-- to be surrounded by people loyal to him to the very grave, to slowly dig out all the old dealings and start making new money. But he was old enough that he could honestly admit to himself-- he had problems. Perhaps more accurately, one problem: impending lunacy. This lunacy had the wary eyes and the carefree smile of a psychopath. This lunacy had a short and pithy name: T-Bag. Back then, if anyone had told Abruzzi that his thoughts would keep returning to the prison cells in general, and to this pedophilic, neo-Nazi, neo-shithead in particular, he would have killed the jokester where he stood and stuffed his tongue back in his throat or ass-- his choice. Even moreso now.

He should have finished off that vermin back then, right at the moment when he threatened their whole escape plan and their lives. But John stopped a second too soon. Did he feel disgust, or maybe.... pity? "I wouldn't make it out there anyway... not with my proclivities..."

_Damn pervert!_

In his anger Abruzzi spit on the carpet and lobbed the empty beercan at the door. By pure chance, he hit Fred right in the forehead as he was entering and muttered an apology.

_If only he could take the can to that cursed pedo's head..._

Realizing what he was really thinking about, Abruzzi smiled without mirth, growling on the inside.

"Fred, Jake..."

The moment that Jake needed to reach the living room where their boss was watching soccer, John froze in uncertainty. You don't need this, the thought pounded in his temples.

"There was a guy who left with us from Fox River, one Bagwell.... Theodore, I think...T-Bag for short. I want you two to find him."

"Should we bring him to you, Johnny?"

"N-no... just tell me his current whereabouts."

Unfamiliar, difficult, strange. The situation always got out of hand with T-Bag. Like it did with Scofield. Like it did with a CO. Like it did with a phonecall to a friend to "take care" of something. Like it did.... He felt his throat, crossed with a narrow scar-- Bagwell's gift of gratitude for Abruzzi having spared his life.

Even his name was idiotic-- Theodore... Now he definitely remembers that that's what it was.

_That's okay, son of a bitch. I'll find you. And when I do, you'll regret ever having been born into this world._

Even though he couldn't even really pinpoint, what it was in Theodore that was driving him crazy-- his neo-Nazi beliefs, or what he did to those teenagers, who could have been Abruzzi's own children, or maybe his sexual preferences.

***

T-Bag first noticed the people tailing him as he was driving back to the place serving as his home for now. Prison had taught him caution and perceptiveness better than living on the outside ever could, and he would have noticed them even if they had put more effort into concealing themselves. But they were hardly bothering to hide. 

There were two of them. A short, stylishly dressed city dandy and a tall lanky guy with a strange haircut, looking more like a docker. Not cops, not private investigators. They resembled the underlings of someone too influential and important to pay a personal visit. For the first time in a year, Bagwell regretted settling not in the Big Wormy Apple, but in this little backwoods place in Oklahoma, where everyone sees everyone and there's no place to hide. Atoka-- a small town on the intersection of a railroad and a highway-- went completely dead as soon as evening fell. Good old Americans watched the evening news on their TVs, drank beer, brawled, fucked, slept... But for him it was out of town, to the forests and plateaus of Ouachita. Almost an hour of a quiet, dark road to the crackle of local radio-- "Voices of Ouachita." No better chance would come later, if these two were out to get rid of him. No one would miss him-- he was a stranger here, and thus at their mercy.

The little pickup truck creaked with effort as it climbed up the road. The beer bottles in the crate on the backseat clinked against each other. Theodore's forehead wrinkled-- what bigshot could he have offended? He couldn't recall anything of the kind. And what bigshots anyway? In and out of the pen since he was ten-- no personal life to speak of. Only now did he get an unplanned break. He even let his hair grow out to celebrate, just to change something up about himself-- even though the presence of a short ponytail, tied back with a rubberband, slightly unnerved him-- T-Bag couldn't even really pinpoint why.

Throwing another glance in the rearview mirror, he bit his lip. Are they completely stupid? It's flat country. You can see the highbeams for miles. Or do they think he's that stupid?

Theodore Bagwell never did finish school. He never liked it. It was far more entertaining to throw rocks at cats than learn any of those annoying, disgusting biology lessons, hearing lists of US presidents from a sleepy history teacher, or sitting and learning the language you already speak fluently. From time to time, you could study the deathrattle and spasms with the curiosity of a scientist, if you wanted to. There was something bewitching, supernatural about it - just a moment earlier, this emaciated, dusty, hungry for life creature had been creeping along the fence, and here was that same life, already ebbing out of its puny body. First, in a wide torrent, then in heavy, miserly droplets. Isn't that philosophy? Is it possible to relate something like this as a description in a textbook?

(Bagwell hated cats most of all, for some reason...)

He drove the truck into the driveway of the farmer who had rented him a room in return for doing odd jobs (as well as a relatively steady paycheck). He got out and looked around. The headlights drew a shimmering arc behind the fence and disappeared-- the car of the stalkers turned around and drove off in the opposite direction. T-Bag chuckled, reflexively petting the farmer's dog that came up to him to lick his hand.

***

"Johnny, he's in Atoka, in Oklahoma..."

"Twenty or so miles from the national forest..."

"... the Ouachita Wildlife Refuge."

Abruzzi mentally rolled his eyes. "Stay in Atoka. I don't want you to do anything-- just keep an eye on his whereabouts."

That said, they really did work effectively. And if they sometimes acted like a pair out of a black and white gangster film-- why not? It didn't affect business. Didn't affect him either, honestly.

"I'm heading out there on the first train."

Fred nodded, even though John could not have seen it over the phone. He still couldn't fathom what they needed from this fag. He didn't have money-- that you could tell from the first glance. He could hardly have harmed the Boss in jail, taking into account his fragile look... Clearing out his throat, the Italian shrugged his shoulders and slapped Jake on the back.

"This little kingdom of death will be snoring until morning. Let's go have a drink, while Johnny's not here to see..."

***

Early in the morning-- the fog had not yet lifted-- Bagwell said his goodbyes to the near-blind, grumpy Eric Rider, loaded up his few belongings into the truck and made himself scarce on the road to Ouachita. Not that he could really remember committing any sins-- more like, just to be on the safe side. For peace of mind. In the end, how could one not be distrustful and careful, when your mug-- thanks, America's Most Wanted—might be familiar to most of the nation?

He reached the fence of the next farm closer to noon. The pickup coughed, choking on the last breath of gas, and stopped, refusing to move any further on an empty stomach. Frankly speaking, the ex-con could perfectly sympathize. He simply did not have the time to take food with him-- Eric's wife had still been sleeping when he was leaving. That's why he simply pulled on his coat, climbed up on the hood of the car, leaned back against the windshield and raised his face up to the still warm autumn sun. It was nice to lie like this, not rushing anywhere, knowing that there won't be a blaring siren in the next moment, nobody would be directing them back to their cells for count, nobody would be thrusting a shovel in his hands, sent off to clear snow off the premises. The rustle of falling leaves was soothing. He even started nodding off but immediately opened his eyes, making out the low roar of an engine in the distance. Lucky for him, the person driving by was the owner of the farm, on the boundary of which the pickup had fortuitously come to a halt. The farmer stopped, asking if he needed any help, and they ended up talking. Turned out that Richard Blackwood was just looking to hire someone for a few days, and he was more than happy to exchange a tank of gas, room and board for the job. It was this way, that later in the evening, the two of them ended up at the same dinner table-- pleased with each other and with life in general. Bagwell was so intoxicated by the unusually hearty food, warmth, and something suspiciously resembling friendship, that he didn't even pay the slightest attention to the steel gaze that Blackwood's wife was boring into him all evening.

***

It seemed right to him not to deal with the airport, even though he could have taken a first class ticket on a domestic flight. For some reason, he wanted to travel by train. You need to travel by train in the US. Especially when just recently your life seemed like a series of defensive hits and waking on someone else's cue.

He sat for a long time, the newspaper folded across his knees, studying the endless scenery rushing past. He was angry, fruitlessly battling the impossibility of understanding why it was that he was dragging himself all the way to Oklahoma, as if all roads led to this weird pedo.

They didn't all lead there. Of course not. But for some reason, John Abruzzi was making his way to fucking Oklahoma, on this fucking train, and was reading a fucking newspaper instead of doing something productive. Not because he had a sudden craving to shake out his old bones. And obviously not because he wanted some fresh air.

"Hi."

He looked over from the woods in the window to the source of the sound and stared at blue eyes-- big and serious. Taking his gaze as an invitation, the owner of those same eyes immediately ended up on his knees, as if that's where she belonged. John was somewhat taken aback, but caught the unexpected visitor when the train lurched slightly. His wide palm easily covered almost half of the child's back.

"I'm Jane!" she announced, glowing with pleasure.

"I'm John," he said haltingly, moving the Chicago Tribune off to the side. "Hi, Jane."

"Hi John."

She was drawling her words out in a funny way, so it sounded like "Hiiiii, Joooohn," which inadvertently reminded him of T-Bag's intonation.

"It's good that we got to know each other-- Mom doesn't allow me to talk to strangers."

"And she's absolutely right." He suddenly stopped smiling. Some thought began twirling in his mind, not letting him be, but also not letting him grasp what it was.

"But we're not strangers now!"

"Oh my God... Jenny! Here you are..."

Her-- older sister? no-- mother's face was tired, and her eyes, like her daughter's. The color of a summer sky.

"I'm so sorry, sir... She hasn't given me or any of our neighbors a moment's peace, the whole trip."

He shook his head, showing her that her worries were unwarranted, that he didn't consider the presence of a child something disturbing or disappointing. He loved children, even though he didn't always know what to do with them.

"I have two of my own at home, Mrs..."

"Owen."

"Mrs. Owen."

She had fine, thin wrists, but the tips of her fingers were wide, her palms callused. Her skin was weathered, uncared for, her hair coming out of her bun. And still, John liked her. And she could sense that he liked her.

"You can leave her with me. She's not disturbing me."

Gratitude flashed across the woman's short-lived smile, but she cast an uncertain glance back behind her shoulder.

"N-no. I wouldn't want to impose. But thank you for the offer..."

"Any time," he chuckled.

And even though the newspaper was back in his hands, he followed them with his eyes for a long time-- watching them as they carefully made their way into the next car. Now at least he understood why it was that he was going to Atoka.

***

Old Miss Blackwood (she insisted he call her "Miss", which drove him crazy-- as if he was some kind of n----r) didn't stop scrutinizing the new worker even the next morning. There probably wasn't anything left that the old hag could have missed, the way she was studying him. Theodore even felt as if he was back in prison: so much did the gaze of this old witch remind him of Bellick's. Finally he couldn't stand it any longer, put his half eaten flapjack back on the plate and left for the yard, where Richard was already waiting for him with his two sons, about to drive a sick hog off for slaughter.

T-Bag obediently jumped up into the back of the truck, situating himself next to the animal oinking complacently, not suspecting how soon it would meet its sad fate.

If the old woman would recognize him, there'd be no end to the problems. Although, it was always possible that he simply reminded her of some old fling from her youth, pulling on her braids back when she still had them, and flinging flies into her ink bottle...

He worked the entire day, and in the evening Blackwood came to pick him up. By this time, Bagwell managed to fix the pasture fence, find and eliminate the cause of a small swamp-- some kid stopped up the brook running through the pasture, and even found time to rub one out-- the body demands what it demands.

Late at night, lying in his shed-- full of the rustling sounds of mice and peppery-smelling, prickly hay-- he stared at the ceiling for a long time. In this one year he met more normal people and saw more kindness than he had in his entire life previously.

_But only because they didn't know-- none of them knew-- what kind of creature you really are..._

A bitter thought-- like absinthe, like someone else's semen on your tongue-- and a justified one.

_Eat, Bagwell! Eat it. It's all for you. Cakes and pies, fried steaks and blood sausages, cold beer and whiskey with orange juice-- that's for everyone else. For you, shit should be satisfying enough. Even if it's not tasty, there's plenty of it!_

After saying farewell to Scofield and Burrows, he met up with a guy he knew on the outside, got his new papers and some money, and then found himself in an old pickup on the road to Arkansas. His head started to spin only then. He had to pull over to the side of the road. There he sat for a long time, watching the sun set and the wind create waves across the grass. His hands shook so much that he could barely light a cigarette. He only managed to set off on his way again a couple of hours later, when the sun was completely gone, and you could only see the spot of pavement right in front of the headlights-- that's how astonishing it was to realize that he alone in this vast country, and distances measured in thousands of miles instead of in yards of cells in Block B.

As long as he could remember, he never had any friends. He had been hated, feared, scorned, admired, even worshipped and addressed in love letters. But no one had ever offered him friendship-- no one called him in the evening to play cards or a pickup game of basketball, no one threw stones in his window in the morning to get him to go out, half-asleep, to go swimming in the foggy river, no one came to his house with a conspiratorial look to show off a new stamp, a frog, or a clump of feathers... He wasn't needed by his father, who left in the late 70's, nor by his drug addict sister, nor his drunkard mother. In the end, Theodore convinced himself that he didn't need anybody either, and left home. From spring to fall he lived on the shores of Alabama, and in the fall got caught in his first robbery...

Now it all seemed hazy, like the opposite shore of a wide and swift river in the rainy seasons. But back then it seemed all too real, and every new day stuck his skin with new needles until, finally, he had become a porcupine...

***

The last several miles, the train crawled on like a tortoise. Apparently the conductor was a stickler, and he really wanted to arrive in Atoka precisely on schedule. Abruzzi was going crazy, and thanked the heavens that they sent him Jane and her quiet, downtrodden mother on the same train. He was awaited on the platform-- the Irishman smiled tenderly at the sight of the cautious chivalry with which John was carrying a small girl out of the train, and helping her mother take out her heavy suitcases onto the platform. However, as soon as Abruzzi turned toward them, they began to look guilty.

"Johnny..." Jake began from afar, miscalculating.

One thing their boss did not like was when people started making excuses.

"Give me the car keys." John sighed. "Where did he drive off to?"

"That farmer..."

"Ride."

"Eric Ride, yeah, exactly. He said that this guy, that you want, set off for Ouachita."

"How many roads go there?"

"Only one from here. Listen, Johnny, you're not planning to drive there alone, are you?" Under his boss's gaze, Fred suddenly noticed how wonderful his nails looked, and began to study them. "The map is on the passenger seat," he muttered.

"Be ready to answer the phone. 24-7. I'll call," he instructed them, getting into the nondescript Chevy.

They nodded their heads to show that they understood everything-- what else could they do? John turned the ignition, starting the car, and laid out the map in his lap. He waited a bit, committing to memory the red marks of the route, put there helpfully by Jake, and then wheeled out onto the road.

It was warmer here than in Illinois-- he even put down both windows and the wind was hitting him in the face, pleasantly messing with his hair. The sun was illuminating the brittle grass stalks, and the trees that were just starting to drop their foliage. This veritable riot of colors in the clear air, motionless , even in this windy weather, was bewitching him. He couldn't help admiring it. Everything here was inexplicably reminding him of Chicago. The day when he first met Sylvia. She was like a sip of autumn. Her light cashmere coat-- as if a cloud had descended to the ground... He wanted to touch her hair even before he caught up to her-- he was certain, for some reason, that they felt cold to the touch and smelled of a summer meadow. A big maple leaf got snagged on her scarf... And this autumn sprite was not smiling at him-- she was smiling at another man, not noticing anything else around her. John swore that she would belong to him, no matter what it took. A year and a half later, they were married...

Abruzzi shook his head, chasing away the memories. He was driving to kill the thought that wouldn't let him go. Sylvia, with her blessed love, her loyalty and faith, with her warm hips and full breasts and her skin the color of warm milk from the kitchen, smelling of pasta and coffee-- Sylvia, mother of his children, had no place here.

Could this bastard really have driven far? Or was he insolent and curious enough just to change his place of residence? Knowing Bagwell, the latter was more probable.

He got angry once he realized how quickly thoughts of the damned pervert thrust the soft picture of his wife completely out of his mind. John sharply turned the steering wheel, pulling over toward the far-off buildings you could see from the road. And when gravel began crunching under his wheels, he could tell that he was not mistaken. This was how a bloodhound can smell prey but doesn't howl just yet, fur standing on end on the nape because it’s not within his sight yet, but his eyes are already set on death, his forehead wrinkling in concentration.

Upon hearing the barking of the guard dog, a tall, large man appeared in the yard, and John Abruzzi smiled-- calmly, pleasantly-- walking a few paces towards him.

"Good day to you. Could you help me with something? See, I'm looking for a friend of mine..."

***

On the street and in prison, T-Bag survived only because he possessed a special talent-- it was as if he could feel in his very bones when something bad was about to go down. And now this same feeling forced him to abandon his work in the far storehouse where he was greasing up the mechanical lift, and head towards the house, thus messing up all of Abruzzi's plans. Abruzzi was counting on finishing off "his friend" without any unnecessary noise in that very storehouse, and then disappear. The body wouldn't be found until later, and by then he would already be in Atoka: he would be just in time to catch the train back to Illinois. Instead he was forced to watch Bagwell come out from behind the corner, the carelessness in his eyes quickly morphing into fear. Not surprising, given how they got along in Fox River.

It didn't take long for T-Bag to figure out whose men had been following him and how John ended up there. He didn't bother with questions about what the mob boss needed. In life, maybe everyone has a moment where they realize that they're looking death straight in the eyes. Bagwell had had that gaze directed towards himself more than a few times in his life. Just enough times to appreciate how good living really is and how stupid it was to escape from life in prison, only to find death a year later in the bullet of an enemy from the past.

"My dear friend Bagwell." The Italian smiled, opening his arms.

T-Bag hardly suppressed the urge to back away-- Abruzzi's eyes were not much kinder than a snake's. He didn't manage to say anything in reply...

In Oklahoma, even in the beginning of December it doesn't get dark as early as, say, Toronto, so it was still light out when Adelaide Blackwood turned on the TV to her favorite channel. The following few minutes she stared at the screen in disbelief, even put on her glasses which were usually dangling uselessly around her neck on a chain. Another minute passed before she raised up the entire house with her shouting, and, limping, she threw herself towards the door as if Satan himself had smiled at her from the screen.

***

Whatever they felt towards each other, when the hysterically screaming woman jumped out on the porch and the import of her words became clear, they didn't think long. John grabbed Bagwell by the collar and pushed him towards his car. T-Bag was lucky-- just managing to duck his head to avoid hitting the top of the car. By the time Richard Blackwood emerged out of the house wielding a double-barreled rifle, the Chevy was already a mile and a half out from the farm and quickly making more distance, roaring toward the wildlife refuge.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" Bagwell finally screeched out.

He didn't think of putting on a seatbelt, but held on surprisingly well when the Italian sharply hit the brakes. The car moaned plaintively and came to a stop, motor humming heavily.

"That's not important now."

T-Bag didn't like Abruzzi. Not because of the broken ribs, not because of his contemptuously aloof attitude, and not because, from the very beginning, they had been grappling for power in the society of inmates at Fox River, as soon as Theodore arrived in the prison and began assembling a neo-Fascist gang. And not even because John for some reason hated his opponent. No. This feeling was analogous to what you experience when you find yourself near a powerful, deadly, dangerous carnivore. A feeling that operates secretly, deep inside, at the level of subconscious instincts. Bagwell's inner voice kept advising - stay far away from Abruzzi, who won't blink before beheading his associate if he feels like it. And now, with the car stopped, Theodore was ready to spring out and run for cover in the roadside bushes. But having gauged the circumstances more soberly, he understood that those bushes would be the last thing he was going to see in this life. In prison, John Abruzzi hated him, didn't tolerate even his mere presence anywhere near him, and now would happily use any excuse to kill him. Theodore wasn't going to kid himself—he knew perfectly what brought Abruzzi here... and because of that sighed deeply and spoke up instead.

"Ouachita stretches out over two states-- Oklahoma and Arkansas," he began, nervously licking his lips. "The cops will be looking for us in Oklahoma, they'll block off the roads... But if we can cross the forest on foot somewhere south of Fort Smith, then we might just be able to make it out alive."

He was using all his strength to keep the shaking out of his voice. He made an effort to keep looking into the murky depths of those cold eyes without breaking eye contact. As if he was dealing with a rabid dog, ready to pounce if you showed weakness, let him see your fear.

"Why on foot?"

"There's only foot trails in these parts. It's hilly, up and down the whole way over rough terrain. It was cheaper and easier to pave the roads around it, instead of getting permission to build through it."

He threw a disapproving look over John, evaluating something. He could see that they had problems on their hands. The Italian was dressed in city clothes-- a thin fall coat, tweed pants, light dress shoes... a great outfit for wandering around in the woods. As for Bagwell himself, he had felt some overnight frost sleeping in the shed, so he had chosen jeans, heavy army boots, a thick woolen sweater and an outdoorsy coat with a hood. He always got cold quickly, as if taking on the temperature of his surroundings.

"I see," Abruzzi was thinking over something. "So now we drive to a parking lot. And then what?"

"Then we quickly rob some hikers and go off into the mountains." T-Bag relaxed, ever so slightly.

"Sounds like a great plan!" John hissed through his teeth.

"Oh no, no," groaned Bagwell. "Don't tell me that another bout of your religiosity is going to stop us from taking what we absolutely can't do without! You'll freeze to death in that. It gets piss-cold here at night, goes down into the 20s, if not lower."

Instead of replying, John pressed the gas pedal into the floor and sent the Chevy hurtling up the road.

***

As planned, they got out of the car in the parking lot near 10 at night. Every day a load of people drive into Ouachita, and about the same number returns rented gear, leaving the park. A great opportunity to gain some time, T-Bag assured.

"They'll be checking all the cars leaving the lot. Doubt anyone will think we're heading straight through the forest into the next state. At least they won't think of it right away..."

Saying all this, T-Bag was methodically shaking out the first aid kit, checking its contents by the light of a flashlight. Having been satisfied with what it contained, he put everything back and put the small bag under his clothes. John managed to notice a metal glint at his waist and silently stretched out his hand toward Theodore.

"Are you kidding me? I'm not about to go on the run unarmed just because your paranoia's acting up!"

"You're giving it to me, and I won't shoot you right where you stand," Abruzzi clarified.

"That's what you drove up here for, isn't it?" T-Bag handed over the knife, annoyed. "Who's stopping you from doing it now?"

A familiar, dull spark lit up in Abruzzi's eyes. Bagwell realized that any next word would be stabbed back into his throat, along with the blade. The Italian put away the broad hunting knife with a satisfied air, and they headed off into wilderness.

A half an hour later, they were lucky to come across a campsite. Despite the darkness, no one was around-- maybe its inhabitants got delayed, staring at some river or feeding brave squirrels and brazen raccoons, one of whom was digging through a pile of camp refuse at the moment. When the two men carefully entered the ring of tents, the animal turned and looked back at them, then turned away showing them its behind. Not really caring where the campers were at the moment, they quickly chose a tent and folded it up along with a pair of sleeping bags. They were happy to find a small stock of canned goods, a couple of bottles of whiskey and a bag of jerky. While John was busy stuffing everything into two backpacks (one of which Theodore was later pleased to discover contained about five hundred bucks), his companion wasn't losing any time going through all the tents. When he returned, he had a small package in his hands.

"There. Now we can go."

He helped Abruzzi put the backpack with the tent on his shoulders, grabbed the lighter one and stuffed what was in his hands into it, and took out a compass from his pocket. As far as John knew, this was also acquired from someone's backpack.

"Theoretically, we should be heading east, but we'll head north for a bit." Not looking back, Bagwell started walking forward. He was still saying something, but the Italian stopped paying attention. A typical citydweller, he would never have decided to walk one hundred and fifty miles through the woods-- he would have gotten lost by the second day. Even stranger was to agree to go hiking that distance with this degenerate as a guide, but somehow he was sure that Bagwell wouldn't abandon him, just as he himself wouldn't abandon Bagwell. Shoot him-- sure, that he could do if Bagwell got on his nerves too much, but abandon him... Abruzzi quietly cursed to himself. Here he was, the object of endless torment for a year now, right beside him-- within arm's reach. Why does he keep thinking about him all the time instead of just finishing him off?!

At the very first stop-- when it became clear that something needed to be rearranged in the backpacks-- Bagwell gave him his package.

"Hope I guessed the size. All they had was sneakers. There weren't any boots for you... Anyway, you'll be more comfortable like that."

***

They didn't get far, of course. In the darkness it was difficult to move fast and not only difficult but also dangerous, even on the trail. Soon they had to turn off into the woods (by T-Bag's estimates they didn't make much more progress than a couple of miles, maybe three) and set themselves up for the night on a small clearing, protected from the wind by a thick undergrowth. In John's backpack they not only had a tent but also a thin mattress pad to sleep on, which Theodore was unspeakably happy about. All the same, he preferred not to contemplate what it would be like sleeping next to a person who wishes nothing but death for you. Deciding that making a campfire not necessary, Theodore opened up two cans, got the water flagon and filled it up with water from the river flowing nearby. He hadn't had a bite to eat since morning, but he had been so nervous that he was preparing dinner more out of habit than any desire. But before that... helping Abruzzi set up the tent turned out to be a tricky proposition, since the man inexplicably insisted on doing it himself. And was cursing through his teeth as much as one possibly could. T-Bag sighed, put aside the food and crawled into the tent to straighten out the poles from the inside.

_Idiot. How easy would it be to run away from him at night?_

Very easy, but Bagwell didn't want to leave Abruzzi. He wanted to figure out, what it was in this damned Italian that drew him in, as if with a magnet. He knew very well the meaning of the expression that periodically appeared in the cold, merciless eyes. Abruzzi wanted him. He was mistaking his desire for simple aggression, aimed at his old enemy. It was amusing, in a way. Truly amusing. Theodore liked games like this, more than anything else, and knew how to play them. He adored that unforgettable, burning pleasure from adrenaline boiling in the blood, forcing him to really feel alive. Games... But wasn't this particular game a bit too dangerous? Flirting with John-- it was the same as trying to play checkers with a grizzly. Being better at the game didn't really give you an advantage.

Unable to stop himself, Bagwell laughed as he was climbing out of the tent.

"What's so funny?"

He shook his head, took the mattress pad and sleeping bags, and pulled them inside.

The comparison of his travel companion with a grizzly put him in an atypically good mood. It really was accurate.

***

John ate the cold dinner, and set his watch alarm for five in the morning. He had to turn off his cellphone, so that it wouldn't run out of battery. T-Bag already curled himself up into his sleeping bag, but wasn't sleeping-- you could hear him fussing in the tent, lying down, then trying to repurpose his coat as a pillow.

John was sitting outside and thinking. From that very morning, he neither said nor did any of what he had been planning from the outset. And Bagwell, to his surprise, didn't stir up hatred or contempt. The burning desire to strangle him had cooled down. He remembered suddenly, how some cellmates and other inhabitants of Block B used to talk about T-Bag. "Theo is one of those that you always want to kill, but you can't catch up to him, and then once you finally get him in a corner, your hand refuses to rise..." He broke off the thought. The autumn woods were rustling all around him-- hundreds of paws of little animals, thousands of branches, and myriads of leaves. Somewhere far away a loud meow echoed suddenly and loudly. Stories about mountain lions on the surrounding streets of Arkansas suddenly took on a reality. It didn't scare him. Forced him to smile. And yet John used the loud, demanding meow as an excuse to put the backpacks away into the tent, crawl into it himself, and zipper the entrance closed. He took off his sneakers and listened.

There weren't any sounds coming from outside anymore. Inside, T-Bag was lying so still. You could think he was asleep, if it wasn't so quiet.

"Bagwell." For a moment Abruzzi tensed, even as he said, but then forced himself to relax.

Theodore didn't reply, but John could feel his stare on his back in the darkness-- questioning and somewhat uncomfortable (was he jacking off in there or something?). He pulled off his coat and crawled into the sleeping bag. Belatedly he realized he should have grabbed two mattress pads-- T-Bag ended up unexpectedly close. This wasn't making him tense, per se-- just slightly embarrassed. On top of that, his companion was shaking slightly, the sensation transferring from one sleeping bag to the other.

After about an hour of unsuccessful attempts to fall asleep John finally couldn't stand it any longer.

"Why the fuck you shaking?!"

"I'm cold..."

You could hear a guilty grin in his voice, as if Bagwell himself was both embarrassed and amused by the fact that he was cold.

Abruzzi dearly wished he could fall asleep, not be bothered with thoughts about causes and effects, not to be bothered at all.

_Jesus, Mary and Joseph, this bastard knew how to mess with your head, without even exerting himself! Why hadn't he run off somewhere along the way, by this point?_

Cursing under his breath and ignoring protests, Abruzzi pulled Theodore out of his sleeping bag (and why does he really want to call him Teddy? Not Theo, not Ted, but Teddy specifically), rearranged it for two spots, hardly thinking about what he was doing and why he was doing it. John opted to just throw all these sorts of questions out of his mind. Because he understood perfectly that if he was going to start thinking about the answers, he'd simply go insane.

"Lie down."

Waiting until T-Bag followed his order (Bagwell obeyed him with a strange submissiveness-- you couldn't see a thing inside the tent, but this submissiveness could almost be felt physically, forcing Abruzzi to be the one to shiver now), and then he situated himself right next to him, when he was satisfied that the second sleeping bag would cover them both. Theodore, who had tensed up immediately, relaxed and, even as John tried to figure out the reason, turned around, pushing his nose into Abruzzi's sweater before lying still. It became so quiet that you could hear both of their heartbeats. Nervous, rushed -- Bagwell's. Measured, defined-- Abruzzi's. Second and minute hands. There was something to it, how T-Bag's chilly hands felt against him-- at once soft but also demanding, audacious...

Before he could catch himself, the blood drained from his head and drained into a completely different part of his body. ( _Happens. You haven't seen your wife in ages._ ) In the meantime, his obnoxious companion was already asleep. Really asleep this time, slowly warming up. Abruzzi could feel his sleepy breathing on his neck, preventing him from calming down, forcing hundreds of thousands of shivers to run up and down his body. Gathering up his willpower into a fist, he finally turned Bagwell back around, hugged him from behind... and five minutes later fell into a deep sleep without dreams.

***

John woke up because Bagwell, seeking out warmth during the night and pressing his whole body against him, sneezed-- quietly but very distinctly. And kept on sleeping, as if nothing had happened. It was cold in the tent. Too cold for Abruzzi's tastes too. He cast a reluctant grateful look at his companion. The other slept very quietly-- breathing inaudibly, his nose hidden between the sleeping bag and the Italian's shoulder. Abruzzi became uncomfortable from a desire that had covertly crept in. Uncomfortable enough to prompt John to climb out of the sleeping bag, get dressed, and undo the tent zipper. It was still dark, but the smell of cold hit the nose hard enough to describe the scene, hooking him from the inside with tiny frigid hooks, forcing the man to step out and crouch down. Lowering his hand, Abruzzi touched his fingers to the burning, frozen overnight ground.

"Shit," commented a voice behind his thoughts.

He nearly jumped out of his skin.

Bagwell was up, but with nothing but his nose showing above the tent zipper. Judging by the shuffling, he was still wrapped up in the sleeping bag. An out of place thought came to John-- why did they steal a light colored tent, one that you could clearly see in the dark... hindsight twenty twenty. In the meantime, the damn psycho yawned resoundingly, climbed back inside, fussed around for some time and then, already dressed, climbed out and thrust a small shovel into John's hands.

"Need to make a hole a foot deep," he said, and disappeared into the darkness.

Abruzzi ground his teeth, but started digging. By the time Bagwell came back with branches and kindling, everything was ready, and soon they were eating exquisitely warm canned food for breakfast, over coals glowing in the twilight of early morning.

They didn't have time to waste, so they moved onwards as soon as they gathered their things and threw soil over the fire. It was almost light out, and snow started falling again. T-Bag squinted contentedly-- the snow should cover up their tracks, and in a couple of hours even dogs would have trouble finding them.

The sudden snowfall and abrupt chilly weather forced them to move faster on the still crunchy earth, not yet covered by leaves or snow. Bagwell was choosing trails intuitively, ones obscured with trees or hills. A couple of times patrol helicopters flew overhead. It seemed that even though they were seen, they were taken for ordinary hikers. From time to time, the trail was crossed by chains of fox, rabbit or mouse tracks. Sometimes a bird flew out of the bushes with a loud screech.

It suddenly occurred to John that life in the company of this pervert could be surprisingly pleasant. He discarded this thought out of his mind, just as that morning he had discarded the desire to put his fingers through the messy bedhead of that same pervert...

***

That evening they decided to get a fire going after all-- it was imperative to dry their shoes, which John got busy with after dinner, unconsciously trying to put off as far as possible the moment when he'd have to go to sleep. Finally he realized what he was trying to avoid, and cursed himself. He covered up the still glowing embers with cinders. He was acting about the same as his five year old son, whose mother looked for him all over the house when it was time to go to bed, to convince him to put away his toys and wash up. 

Abruzzi smiled slightly, remembering Johnny, a quiet, serious, and polite boy.

_Enough of this. Really, just like a child..._

Bagwell was already fast asleep, fatigued by the long trek. John situated himself on his side of the mat, putting his hands behind his head. Some spots were still hovering before his eyes-- scenes from the past day. His feet were throbbing, his back complaining-- thirty-something miles without practice was not a trivial task even for a young, healthy man, and Abruzzi was far from being a youth. A sleepy sudden curiosity went through his mind -- how old is Bagwell anyway? -- and immediately laid itself back down in some far corner of his subconscious. When T-Bag moved and instinctively rolled in closer to the source of warmth, the Italian hugged him with one arm out of habit and squeezed him to himself. If in his dreams he had a passing, light confusion-- since when had Sylvia become so wiry?-- it quickly extinguished, leaving behind only a feeling of contented quiet.

***

Theodore rarely had dreams. More often it was just unclear silhouettes, flashes of light, sounds, smells...

_It had been a long time since he's had reason to feel like a boy-- more frightened than he cares to admit, not daring to move and fervently wishing to be someplace else entirely... When he feels like he's suffocating with the mingled smell of blood, shit, sperm, sweat, fear and lust… it reaches through everything, even penetrating through the pillow, triggering nausea, disgust, and arousal... when it doesn't hurt sharply anymore, but just grows dull.... when he wants to only close his eyes, lay still and not move, freeze up in knot of pain, disbelief and revulsion... when his tears run out and from somewhere out of your solar plexus rises up a stubborn, crimson fury, flooding everything..._

_A dream... damn you, Bagwell, it's just a dream..._

_And the scene changes._

_Cherry-- he nicknamed him that because his lips became a deep cherry color from kissing, and intoxicated him no less than cherry liquor... Cherry, that sweet boy-next-door, is complaining about the heat, obediently holding dried fruits in his cupped hands. It is hot, so hot that it seems his skin is about to start cracking. Theodore pushes away the fruit with his hand and goes to the bars to find out what's happening, why the air conditioners and fans have stopped working. Everything twists, painfully gripping his stomach just under his ribcage, and he's already standing across from John Abruzzi, not yet knowing what’s going on, but already sensing something bad._

_"Hello, Theodore." Abruzzi smiles._

_T-Bag startles. In the dream, the thing that in waking feels like a mere vague unease, an echo, a mere hint of a much stronger aroma now starts to expand, becoming clear, carrying with it not a promise but a threat. In the dream he is positive that a psychopath is standing before him-- a more complete psychopath, than T-Bag is himself. And much shrewder than him._

_'This is no fucking game!' runs through his mind._

_"Do you really think that you can outsmart me, you son of a bitch?"_

_Theodore is silent, looking in terror at the shards of ice that the eyes of the Italian have become, the wound on his throat-- it's like a thin lipped mouth, slightly opening with every breath going out. There's nothing in Abruzzi's hand, and he doesn't need any weapon. He can just put his hand into T-Bag's chest and rip his heart right out of there, leaking blood, and Theodore knows this for a fact._

_John smiles again. The smile scares T-Bag even more._

T-Bag didn't shout-- he learned not to scream in his sleep long ago. But a strained, tortured moan, almost a croak, woke Abruzzi immediately. Something told him that the man sleeping next to him was having one of those dreams that pull you in completely, enveloping you with their reality, not allowing you to wake up, robbing you of strength. He quickly turned on the flashlight.

T-Bag's hands were freezing, his forehead broken out in a cold sweat. He woke up only after John slapped him hard across the face, giving up on rousing him any other way. In the dim light John could see blown out pupils, almost obscuring the iris entirely. A strange expression froze in Bagwell’s eyes-- something between fearful panic, a plea, and a threat... John had already seen him like this once, and his body reacted involuntarily (now he really felt it clearly) just as it did back then. This time the lust was stronger-- he needed several minutes to rein in the inappropriate (one might say maddening) desire to pounce on this thin body, simultaneously fuck it to death and tear it into pieces with his bare hands.

Apparently something changed in his face, and forced Bagwell to come to himself a little bit and move away, still watching the other man warily. John looked at his own hands. The tips of his fingers were shaking from desire, and once again this irrational want that kept rearing its head. He could clearly see now that Bagwell could sense his desire and kept responding to it against his will.

"Turn off the flashlight," Abruzzi finally muttered.

His voice sounded dull, raspy. His heart was pounding somewhere-- either in his temples or his throat.

When the light was turned off, it became a little easier. Staring at the tent's ceiling in the dark was better than having the light and seeing those dilated pupils, that tongue darting across dried out lips, thin but sharply defined-- such strange wrinkles running down the cheeks, further than the outline of his smile.

Abruzzi couldn't fall back asleep immediately, but eventually managed it.


	2. Chapter 2

In the morning, neither one of them exchanged a word about what

(what almost, nearly)

happened that night.

Bagwell was grimly covering up the campfire with dirt, occasionally glancing up at the darkening sky with a worried look. Abruzzi was folding up the tent, and the only sign that he had any reaction to anything in his surroundings was a small, derisive smile. The Italian’s face did not look kind at all.

"Move very calmly," Bagwell suddenly muttered, barely moving his lips. "I'm going to be the one talking."

_Dammit! And I didn't hear a thing…_

Abruzzi resisted the temptation to turn around and continued to pack up, as if he had sent the whole world to the devil long ago.

"Good morning, fellows."

A young, cheerful voice…

Abruzzi smiled wider, briefly looking over at the ranger in his coat with a fur-lined hood and his dog—a good-sized Sennenhund. In the meantime, Bagwell stepped forward toward the newcomer.

"Hello, Mr…"

"Oh please. I'm Brad."

"Good morning, Brad."

"Didn't luck out with the weather, huh." The young man squinted up at the sky.

"My friend and I like to camp this time of year. Fewer people… you understand, right?" he smiled-- disarmingly, downright dreamily.

John was astonished, seeing this smile full of trust and friendliness. It really suited Bagwell, who even without it was-- one had to admit—one charismatic bastard. That smile could put anyone at ease…

(a teenager)

even the sternest cop. And that had often happened during their time in prison. In Abruzzi's eyes, everything Bagwell did to attract attention or get something he needed always had the air of flirtation. 

But it was wonderfully effective.

"Well, good hiking to you guys." The ranger whistled, summoning his dog. "Don't forget to bury your campfire."

John breathed a sigh of relief, returning to his interrupted task, but in the next moment reached into the backpack and felt for the axe, ignoring his companion's silent look of warning. 

"You know what, fellows… I recently got a message over my radio here. They're saying two escaped convicts were seen near an entrance to Ouachita-- have been on the run for a year, apparently. The sheriff is telling everyone in the area to be careful, but isn't reporting to the FBI-- wants to please the higher-up, probably…" 

The words were pouring out of him like ripe beans out of a pod. Brad wasn't even looking at John, absorbed by the rapt, sympathetic Theodore, who was watching him with the facial expression that would force even those who hated him to stop and doubt themselves-- were they really being fair in their hatred? And that was very fortunate, because death had come and frozen into Abruzzi's eyes, and it would be visible even to a naive little youngster like this one.

"Oh, do you think they're dangerous, Brad?"

John almost burst out laughing. It was a good thing that the young guy was so immersed into his story. T-Bag asked his question, either seriously or mockingly, with the air of a good little girl from Catholic school. The ones who ask a kind police officer whether it's dangerous to walk home in the evening if there's a Goth band playing a concert in town.

"I don't rightly know. They don't give out the details to the rangers in these situations, because they don't want people to panic. But yeah, I think they must be."

"We have cell phones. We could report to you, if we see anything suspicious," Bagwell offered hesitantly.

The ranger nodded empathetically, handing him a business card for the administrative offices of Ouachita. They did have cell phones. Rather, John had one, which he had turned off and put at the bottom of his backpack, to not waste the battery. And the damn pervert couldn't have known about that.

"Thanks. Stay safe."

"God protects those who protect themselves." Theodore gave him the a-okay sign.

"Exactly. Well, good luck you!"

"You too."

John relaxed. The knuckles of the fingers that had been squeezing the axe stayed white for a while longer. T-Bag continued to cover up the coals as if nothing had happened. 

"You're pretty damn good at bullshitting…"

There was approval in the Italian's voice, but Bagwell snapped back.

"Always have been. You can ask Scofield-- his eyes and head work better than yours."

And despite the sudden influx of anger, Theodore did relish the praise.

***

That day they walked further, and probably could have covered even more distance, but John fell through into a hunting trap in the evening. Theodore had walked ahead scoping out a new trail-- the one they were following for the last five hours started to sharply head north-- and didn't immediately notice the other man's absence.

The trap was probably made by some poacher (although John found it hard to imagine what one could hunt here). Then later he forgot it, or, more likely, got caught redhanded. In any case, Abruzzi's weight had been enough to break through the cover made of thin branches. He managed to grab on to some root, and a chunk of soil slid in with him, all the way down to the bottom. The impact knocked the breath of him, and John needed some time to verify that nothing had been broken in the fall. Looking up, he could see that he would not get out without another's help. He still tried to jump-- his fingers fruitlessly scraping the dark dirt of the pit wall, still about a foot below the edge.

"Damn pit." Abruzzi mentally spit in disgust, usually avoiding expressions like that.

_Everyone repaid according to his sins… don't dig a pit for someone else-- you'll end up in there yourself._

That's all he needed… sermons from his own self, even if they were justified. He hadn't given up yet, and wasn't planning on meeting his end at the bottom of a trap in this godforsaken place. There was Bagwell, after all. Then again, both of them knew perfectly why John Abruzzi had arrived in Oklahoma. And in Bagwell's place, the Italian would have walked away, without even looking back. How much time would it take him to scrape off enough dirt to clamber out of a pit almost two men's heights deep? A day? Two? And Bagwell was carrying all the food, unfortunately…

Abruzzi stopped pacing around in the narrow space and wasting his energy, and stood still, staring into one point, as if he had descended deep into himself. His lips pronounced a few words of prayer out of habit, and then fell silent, as if covered with the sticky palm of sudden terror. The chill air in the pit was humid, smelled slightly rotten. It seemed as if only a little bit longer and he would suffocate, drown in the heavy smell of dirt, and the opening on top would close up, like a toothless mouth. Only the blind creatures living underground would even know where he was, and soon even they would forget. A shiver ran down John's entire large body, struggling against the sudden panic, knowing that to give in to it would be the height of folly, in fact-- the beginning of the end for him.

Trying to feel at least some form of support, he pulled out the simple cross around his neck on a chain, and squeezed it in his hands. It felt slightly better.

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis*...

"Got yourself a premier suite, I see. Lazing around while others are putting in the work."

Bagwell. He was squinting out of the bright, white daylight above, trying to make Abruzzi out at the bottom of the pit. He was going to verify that Abruzzi had no way to free himself, make a quip, and leave to go home on his own.

"How are your bones? Can you move yourself…"

"Think so…"

Abruzzi didn't think there was anything wrong with him other than the psychological shock.

"Take a deep breath. Does it hurt anywhere? Ribs? Back? Kidneys?"

"No, I told you!"

"Right."

Theodore disappeared and reappeared against the darkening sky just when the Italian started to think that his travel buddy realized that trying to save him would delay him a lot, and more importantly-- why bother saving the man who would potentially murder him…

"You know, he's a shithead, and more garbage can fall out of his mouth than his own weight, but he won't leave you in a pinch. Because he knows how to work in a team, as much as he tries to hide it."

This was said to him by either C-Note, or maybe even Michael himself, Abruzzi couldn't recall.

Grunting and panting, Bagwell was dragging something over to the pit.

"Get over to one side."

Abruzzi barely heeded the instruction, when a log slid into the pit, landing with one end at the bottom of the pit and the wall, and the other nearly reaching the top.

"Climb up. And don't forget the backpack, Big Italy. I don’t want to spend the rest of the nights without a tent, if you please."

A belt dropped down from the top.

Abruzzi stood petrified, unable to believe what was happening. Bagwell could have left. He could have been two or three miles away from this cursed pit by now. Instead, he was rescuing from a sure demise a man that has wished him nothing but death-- a painful, violent death at that-- ever since the day they met.

"Abruzzi! Did you fall asleep in there or what?! Come up out of there! Fuck you and your mother! I don't wanna be stumbling around in the dark looking for a place to sleep."

"Leave my mother out of it!" the Italian snapped, out of habit, and climbed up the log.

T-Bag, who had tied his coat around his waist and using his bootlaces to extend the belt only growled something unintelligible in answer. No doubt something about his the extent of his love for John's mother. When the improvised cable was pulled taut under his companion's considerable weight, the sinews on Theodore's forehead popped out from the tension of pulling him up. A few moments later, John threw himself over the edge along with the backpack. Somewhere on a nearby tree an alarmed magpie was chittering away, and Bagwell threw a displeased look in its direction before starting to undo the knots and re-lacing his boots. He didn't want nor expect gratitude from the maofioso, so John's heavy "thank you" disconcerted him. He clumsily did up his belt using the wrong holes and his answer "no problem, any time" degenerated into a strange, tongue-twisted "Nproblmnytm"

That night, T-Bag sat at the campfire so long that John became seriously concerned that he had fallen asleep there, and that the next morning he'd have to bury a stiff frozen corpse in the forest. An unwanted question crept into his head-- would he bother doing that for his chance traveling partner? Neither this thought nor what had transpired that day were enough to change anything about his relationship to Bagwell. The damn psycho had no remorse about the raping he had done to those innocent children, and he valued the life of a fellow human being about as much as a pestering fly's. How long could this walking disaster really live outside, in freedom, which he was entirely unequipped for? That was the last thought that Abruzzi managed to think before his tired brain completely succumbed to sleep.

T-Bag stole into the tent when the cold began nipping at his balls in earnest, and the tiny excuse for a campfire was no longer warming him. He was being eaten away by a vague premonition, gradually crystallizing into a firm confidence, and preventing him from falling asleep. Finally, he couldn't stand it any longer and pushed John awake, who had been snoring as loud as a brass band.

"Bagwell, you know, if you're waking me up only because I'm sleeping on your half of the mattress…"

"Shh… be quiet."

T-Bag's cold, feverishly dry finger touched John's lips exactly where the upper groove divides the mouth with a firm seal of silence. John's face jerked back. 

"What do you want, pervert?!"

"I'm not insisting on my ideas, but… it seems to me that the roads will all be blocked by the time we hit Fort Smith. We'll be boxed in, like animals in a hunt."

It took some time for the entirety of what was said to settle into the mind of the sleepy Italian. He sat up, propping his hands against his knees.

"Well and what's to stop me from leaving you here and getting out more or less calmly?"

T-Bag didn't opt to ask why-- he knew full well that out of the two of them, he was the more desirable prey for the Feds. He also didn't pose any rhetorical questions about who really owed whom, at this point.

"We could…"

" _We_?"

Bagwell ignored the derisive, purposely spiteful mockery in Abruzzi's tone.

"We could cross state lines in coffins. In the guise of dug up remains that are being transported by trusted people under relatives' demands. Remember? Like they used to transport alcohol into Chicago during Prohibition?"

_Imagine that, and I thought you only knew how to say foul things._

"And what's to stop me from sending you to hell and using this idea myself?"

"Why are you asking _me_ that?!"

In the darkness, the threat was palpable. As if in front of his eyes a fiery purple thread was drooping and straightening taut by turn. Then John realized that this was an optical illusion—that he had only overexerted his eyes, trying to make out the changeable face of the person he was talking to in the pitch blackness of the night. He always found it unbearably difficult to predict Bagwell's behavior—precisely because of the speed with which the expression changed in the eyes of this cursed neo-Nazi.

"You know what, Big Italy… You've made me beg once before. How about we keep it to that one time, okay?"

The nature of the tension transformed, like a current in the ocean. Only T-Bag guessed what was happening, because that time, that he had just mentioned, there was something else besides religious affect, fury, hatred, and confusion which took over Abruzzi. That very "something else" could always be felt between them now, forcing them both to feel out of sorts, knocking Bagwell out of his habitual rut, tearing the earth from under Abruzzi's feet, robbing him of his usual confidence. It only disturbed Bagwell at first. Very soon it became his favorite pastime-- to drive the usually calm as a tank Abruzzi crazy, slowly brushing up against his libido, teasing and tempting it.

Theodore moved away just in time to avoid getting smacked in the face, anticipating John's reaction to his own feelings.

"Well since you've woken me up…

(go to hell)

... go get everything ready."

Bagwell shrugged his shoulders and set out to make breakfast, as if he hadn't expected anything else. And Abruzzi was annoyed to catch himself with a feeling of unexpected familiarity, even though there was no way he could have gotten familiar in such a short time.

***

The following two days of walking were spent almost entirely in silence. Bagwell still sometimes tried to joke out of habit, but under the grim gaze of his partner would quickly reestablish their mute armistice. He could only guess at the thoughts brewing in Abruzzi's head, just as the latter, in turn, couldn't possibly know what went on behind Bagwell's irreverent, rust-colored eyes.

In fact, Theodore was only thinking about how to squirm out of the situation they'd created. He didn't trust the Italian, still couldn't forgive him the murder of his only relative and his son. He feared Abruzzi and just as before would have much preferred to end up on the other side of

(the world)

the country. But something drew him to Abruzzi. What it was about John that managed to attract him-- his imperturbable faith in rules, his strength or tenacity, or maybe even the danger he presented to those around him-- Theodore couldn't have revealed even under duress. He enjoyed it, ensnared in some perverted pleasure, intrigued every time when he found himself skirting frighteningly close to the boundary behind which someone's-- definitely not John Abruzzi's-- death usually followed. His blood would boil with adrenaline and he would relish that electricity, feeling alive. John was his complete opposite and to be near him was simultaneously interesting and, inevitably, dangerous. T-Bag could never decide if the game was worth the trouble. And each day he went to sleep with less and less confidence in himself and in his abilities. It was as if Abruzzi, like some monster, was sucking these abilities right out of him, taking them for himself. But the excitement-- who'll do what to whom first?-- invariably infused him with new strength and fighting spirit by next morning. One could laugh at the whole thing. From the side, it would seem as if this Chicago kingpin had become the entire reason of his existence. A ponderous, forty-cannon flagship, around which zigzagged a cheerful, lightweight pirate brig-- that's what their association resembled. And the goal wasn't in catching up, sinking the other, but rather to use agility and art to avoid any close or far range battles. One could say that T-Bag was truly content this way. There was no pressing reason to choose. Only the Abruzzis and the Scofields of the world go out of their way to create problems for themselves and get their asses into needless adventures. Bagwell just lives his life.

Speaking of which, John Abruzzi who was lying beside him, was just finding himself to be getting into a needless adventure. He hated when the morality he had absorbed alongside his mother's breastmilk, his own wishes, and the feeling of debt were all tearing into him like scavengers tearing at rotting meat. The feeling of duty was hinting that he needed to turn this damned pervert in to the police. Morality was against the existence of something like Bagwell, just on principle. But he owed T-Bag

(what a fucked up nickname)

his life.

(Life, dear, and not something more trivial.)

This was a debt. And to return it wasn't so simple.

(Plants always rot from the roots up…)

And so, a civil duty versus a personal debt… the first under pressure from the latter in cruel agony, admitting its own futility.

(An eye for an eye—a caveman's principal, not having seen the light from above…)

Bagwell turned over in his sleep and quietly pressed his nose into Abruzzi's unshaven chin. Calm, sleepy breathing ran warm against his neck. It wasn't the first time he had felt it and was always dumbfounded by the confusing emotions it triggered. He had never before experienced this kind of mixture of a domestic comfort and a burning, almost acrid, lust. It wasn't the long absence of women, even, but something in Bagwell himself. In his special way of curving his smiling mouth, lowering one corner… in his light, supple gait… in his constantly inflamed-looking eyes the color of an aged cognac, in his disheveled dark hair and his thin

(fitting into a circle of Abruzzi's thumb and index finger)

wrists, which Abruzzi was sorely tempted to lock into handcuffs… in his brazenness, bordering on insanity… in the biting cynicism of his criminal face... in all these things, which in total added up to Theodore Bagwell and no one else. All these things enraged, embarrassed, excited, tugged on his sinews and nerves, awakened a violent desire, already experienced a couple of times previously, to tear apart that thin mocking mouth, to skin this son of a bitch alive, from inside out. But this wasn't the way out.

(It's a terrible sin—that, which you want to do. Infinitely worse than sodomy. But how sweet it is to fantasize about it.)

_And what makes you any better, John Abruzzi?_

He startled. Had his ponderings transformed into a dream? The question was still splashing around in his head, like stale water in a half empty keg. It rang cruelly distinct, the same way the voice of the Archangel Michael probably sounded in the head of the maiden of Arc, five hundred years ago.

"But I'm not a child murderer," he spoke reluctantly, staring into the eyes of his own reflection.

He was often looking into a mirror in his dreams. But today for the first time he saw someone else in there.

"But you killed Jimmy, didn't you?"

Bagwell wasn't smiling. The only things showing on his face were some fatigue and pity. John watched him, powerless to turn his eyes away from the thin face with the sleepless circles under its eyes, from the deep creases around the mouth. He stared at him as if he wasn't an immoral psycho-killer, not a crazy pedophile and homo, seeking to defile everything he lays eyes on, but rather Lucifer himself, come to read him his sentence and escort him down to Hell.

"I didn't know!"

"What exactly didn't you know? That I have a favorite—only!—nephew? That your guy wouldn't want to leave extra witnesses, even if they're only a child?"

These questions had already been torturing John for many days, almost drove him insane, not allowing him to justify his actions to himself. Theodore Bagwell

(didn't have any right to blame him)

avoided looking Abruzzi directly in the eyes, as if he was hiding something that he wasn't supposed to notice. Hiding…

***

Fear.

No. More than simply fear-- a sense of downright horror coming on in waves.

T-Bag's eyes flew open and he instinctively started reaching for a weapon. Not finding one, he stilled. The sense of horror faded, and he heard something that forced him to wake up fully. The noise of sirens covered up the distant barking of several dogs. 

"Abruzzi…"

The whisper was enough for the Italian to come up for air out of the sticky cobwebs of the nightmare. He sat up, pushing aside the sleeping bag.

"Listen."

They were both still.

"Seems like they figured out that we're somewhere in the park."

"We have to leave. Abandon the tent." Bagwell was already in his coat and unfastening the top of the tent. "The snow's melting. We have to get out of here before it's all gone, but first we have to decide one thing. What are you planning to do?" 

Even before he was done talking, John understood that Theodore needed _guarantees_. Guarantees that he'll stay alive when they come out of the woods. And he still didn't know, what he should do. In the end, he could give him this

(false)

promise and hold him

(chained up)

always by his side, controlling his every move, until he learns to value human life.

_That would mean fucking forever! And you know it._

"Bagwell… a lot has happened between us…"

The last protest from his conscience was drowned out by his decision.

"Did you ever consider working for someone else?"

Even-- no, _especially_ \-- in the darkness, it was noticeable how wary T-Bag became.

_Like a tomcat, caught in the act of stealing meat…_

This unexpected thought triggered John to smile. Bagwell really did resemble an emaciated cat out of a dumpster. And, just like that animal, you wanted to take it, wash it off, and have a look at what's underneath, find out what's there under the dirt, behind the hungry eyes and feral demeanor.

"Are you suggesting I work in your group?"

"Something to that effect."

Admittedly, he didn't know yet, what he could really do with him. He had to bat away the voice of reason, explaining his own behavior to himself as something done out of extenuating circumstances.

"Let's get out of here."

This was sort of a promise to think about, maybe even stoop to his older companion's offer. But they both knew what this really was. Bagwell didn't have a choice, and he knew that Abruzzi was perfectly aware of this. This was a mutual admission of defeat.

 

***

 

They managed to get out, only ahead of the cops by a few hours, but that was more than enough to make even more distance. Abruzzi called up his people, when the lights of some club became visible in the distance, and they met up on CR-125-- a non-descript back country road from which they arrived in Booneville just before nightfall, and rented out a room in some hotel on Arcadia Drive.

Feeling slightly wild after the unplanned trek, John suggested stopping at a hotel, to bring himself back into order and to eat, and only then discuss what to do next. They turned off at the first motel with a vacancy, and a suite with two adjoining rooms. While Bagwell was washing off (of course the bastard managed to sneak into the shower first), Abruzzi had to think about yet another problem. Looking at his boss with innocent eyes (which should have in and of itself brought suspicion), Fred wondered what it was, exactly, that they were planning to do with the pervert-pedophile.

"Do you need to know right away?" John snapped, who was simply not prepared for the question.

Fred went silent, shrugging. But the question remained suspended between them, just as dust stays in the air of a stuffy room even after a thorough cleaning. It settles down into its previous place soon enough, but is raised up again as soon as a light breeze passes through.

"Consider him as someone who might come in handy if we need to deal with a special kind of stubborn type… a secret weapon for the worst case scenario."

By the time T-Bag came out of the bathroom, noticeably fresher and more cheerful, John had almost managed to convince his underlings and himself of what he was saying.

"So did you figure out where we're headed?" Bagwell asked.

"No."

John grimly slammed the door right in front of Bagwell's nose, knowing perfectly how childishly he was acting.

There were still wisps of shaving cream in the sink, and the humid air was full of the smell of soap, mixed with a light, sharp smell of the body of another man. And in his temples once again, a throbbing question: what am I getting myself into?

He turned the faucet knob, making the water flow harder, waiting for the right temperature. Something fell out of the pocket of his pants, clinking as it hit the floor. John leaned down and picked up the dogtag on a chain. Bagwell wore it for fun around his neck, but one evening tore it off and threw it on the ground in a fit of annoyance-- and John for some reason picked it up and automatically put it in his pocket. It didn't have a number, a blood type, or a name, just the phrase "Don't push me!"

How very Bagwell.

Stepping into the shower, he closed his eyes and, obviously not thinking about what he was doing, took his half-hard dick into his hand, pressing his other hand against the tiled wall. The warm water was hitting him on the shoulders, thin, gentle streams of water running down his body. Underneath his skin, fiery salamanders were scurrying around. It didn't take much effort. Barely shuddering, Abruzzi pressed his forehead into the wall, next to his hand, and breathed out hoarsely, brokenly. Only his physical tension disappeared-- the fire that had been eating away at him for several days now was raging on, burning out his eyes and trying to rid him of all the sense he still had left.

In prison they said Bagwell always drove his cellmates crazy in very short order, and that after him, people often headed straight to the psych ward. John Abruzzi didn't believe these stories, considering them the invention of the Aryan Brotherhood, who had their own reasons for wanting to raise the authority of their leader and put fear into fresh fish. But now, he had become convinced that he had been wrong. Bagwell hadn't even been doing anything in particular…

(Smiled his fucked up smile and acted annoying, wasn't that all?)

Instead of the expected and desired relief, the shower brought only renewed irritation-- the rivulets of water weren't washing away his tiredness but rather hitting his skin unpleasantly, knocking it back in, as if with nails. The air had become heavy, humid, like a cotton blanket left on the banister on a spring night. So when Abruzzi came out, in Theodore's eyes he really resembled a wet porcupine, out for revenge. The Alabamian shook his head.

"What!" John couldn't contain himself.

"Want pizza? It's still warm…"

For some time he bore his gaze into T-Bag, a gaze in which it was plain to see, if one wanted to, exactly what he thought about the damn pervert, and all his cursed ancestors, to the seventh generation. But the 'damn pervert' didn't even blink, only one vein pulsing at his temple, betraying his unease.

"Is there beer?"

This grunt convinced T that the danger was past and that he could keep speaking and moving. He nodded and turned to the table, not failing to notice the questioning ( _what-in-the-world-is-going-on?!_ ) look from Jake-- putting it away in his memory in order to remember it later if he had to

(kill)

assess the situation. He opened a bottle and passed it to Abruzzi along with a big slice of pizza.

"So where to from here?"

Theodore took care to avoid the "we" word, not wishing to anger the impulsive, easily violent Italian any more than he had to. Roughly speaking, one could consider John an American, what with his height over six feet and a truly Chicago-style of arrogance, but for T-Bag, a true embodiment of the American heartland, he would always be a Goomba.

"Florida."

"What, are we going sunbathing on the beach until they find us?"

Abruzzi threw a sideways glance at O'Connelly.

_So we got ourselves a comedian…_

"No, we're taking a plane and flying to a good friend's house."

"Oh…"

A good friend meant that John was still trusted, and the very top of the mob was giving him shelter.

"But why not to Sardinia?"

"I think I'm justified in thinking that they'll be searching for me there."

"And on the Bahamas… what are we…"

"What route are we taking, Big Italy?"

Bagwell didn't speak loudly, but the talkative—like most Italians—Fred

(an American name does not an American make)

shut up when he heard Bagwell's hoarse, drawn out voice. Yet again, Abruzzi noticed with a measure of discontent, how easily and enthusiastically people noticed and listened to Theodore Bagwell whenever he opened his mouth.

_Should open his mouth for something more useful!_

He rubbed his temples, eyes, trying to concentrate on the question.

Admittedly, a pertinent one.

"Well… I was thinking about taking a road near the coast…"

"What, on I-10?" Bagwell scratched the back of his head, which made him look like a crested grebe. "Don't you think the interstates will be the first places they'll be searching?"

"Should we go around, through Tennessee?"

"Nah," T-Bag grimaced. "Fred, give that fucking map over here, I have to take a look at the roads."

John already opened his mouth to say that he's not going to stand for people talking like that in his presence, and on top of that ordering his men around, but didn't say anything, realizing how stupid it would look. He'll remind him later. When he thinks of a way to remind him.

"Well, what are you gonna suggest?"

T sniffed at Jake's question.

"Take smaller roads through the Baptist Ouachita school, then on to Greenville… Mississippi. Alabama. There take it south-southwest and we're in our blessed Florida. Oh, the map!" he grabbed the folded up paper out of Fred's hands. "There we go. Mississippi you can cross without any problems taking 16… No, here's a better way." His finger slid over the country's arteries. "Take 116, use 23 to get out on 71, and there take 280 until I-530 at Pine Bluff. And then after that take 65 and 82 through Columbus and Tuscaloosa until we hit Montgomery, and then… 331 to highway 10 until Jacksonville. Once we're there, just take 95 on the west coast until Fort Lauderdale."

T-Bag shoved the map under John's nose, who looked as if someone hit his head with a metal pipe.

"Hey, freak, how come you know all this?" asked Jake, letting his boss off the hook from having to make some unintelligible noise instead of a coherent sentence.

"He's from Alabama."

Abruzzi had managed to deal with that torrent of information, after all.

"Alright. And how are we going to be crossing state lines? If we follow the route you outlined, we have to cross three along the way. You had some idea, I remember, when we were walking through the woods. How realistic is it and what do we need for it?"

Bagwell fell back into thought for exactly the amount of time it took him to swallow a bite of pizza and take a sip of beer.

"With a coffin it should be pretty easy. We need a pair of papers with authorization to dig up bodies and transport them to Florida. I think that's right up your alley…"

Abruzzi snorted, inadvertently.

"Glad you think so…"

With his connections in Chicago, being in Arkansas right now, get a couple of fake documents. What could be simpler.

"Well, guys." John got up. "Resting time's up. We don't have spare time."

Bagwell obediently got up, grabbed a couple of bottles from the table and disappeared in the direction of the bed, correctly judging that his participation wasn't going to help in this. John Abruzzi would no doubt be happy to take a break from the dubious pleasure of seeing his ubiquitous, skinny ass-- at least for a little while.

***

By the evening of the next day a new problem arose: they weren't able to obtain documents and permissions for two coffins on such short notice, at least not in a way that would look believable.

"What about just trying to wait out the worst of it and wait for the second document?"

T-Bag, obviously thinking more clearly after twenty four hours of sleeping, looked at Fred who was suggesting the idea and shook his head.

"We'll be found. It's hard for four men to hide in some cheap motel in an unfamiliar town. We'll have to crawl into the sewer and crawl out at night, like rats. Our America-- it really is a land of well-meaning neighbors…"

John nodded in agreement.

"Bagwell's right."

"Hey, fellows, can you let us talk alone for a bit…"

O'Connelly and Coniglio looked questioningly at their boss. Thank God for that. Abruzzi turned his head, and they left the room. T-Bag firmly closed the door behind them.

"I'm going to ask you a question, only try not to kill me…" he prefaced. He was nervous.

And it was precisely this nervousness that forced John to be calm about what came next.

"Could you bear a couple of days with me in one coffin?"

He didn't expect anything different from

(a homo)

Bagwell, really. He slowly looked over Theodore, from his boots to the top of his head, millimeter by millimeter, forcing him to feel like an exotic animal in a cage, then a rabbit before a python, to keep guessing just how stupid it had been to say that sentence out loud, and whether he was going to be shot on the spot, here and now. But somehow the idea to share a coffin kept coming back with an enviable persistence… there was something grimly humorous in this phrase "one coffin for two". An unexpectedly attractive, scary truth. Figuratively speaking, both of them were dead men, if anything were to happen. It was as if, all the way back in the Fox River, someone had descended from the skies-- or more likely ascended from somewhere underground-- and tied them together with one thread of fate. Just to have a laugh at his own joke later, just to observe how they would keep entangling themselves in it more and more. John startled. 

"If it turns out to be too much effort, I'm going to just throw you out of the car," he warned, giving in.

Bagwell smirked, and the tip of his tongue darted out to moisten his lips, forcing John to doubt whether he had made the right choice. This pervert always made nonsense get into his head. Better not to think about it and go pack…

T-Bag's irreverent, confident gaze followed the Italian as he left, belying the complete chaos going on inside him. Unlike Abruzzi, he perfectly understood what was going on between them right now and what could befall either one, or if they were unlucky, maybe both of them at once. If Theodore could force himself to start his life on a new page, crossing out everything that had come before, he gravely doubted John's ability to do so. No matter how many times T-Bag saved this dago's ass, no matter how much he had been doing for their mutual benefit since the time he managed to slice up his throat, the first impression would always remain the most important for John. In the Italian's eyes, Bagwell deserved to be in prison forever. In John's eyes, it was an oversight of the government to give him a life sentence rather than a date with the electric chair.

_Aren't you a dead man in any case?_

Theodore bit his lip until it bled, suppressing the nervous breakdown he felt coming on. The salty-rusty flavor on his tongue sobered him up. John hadn't killed him, for whatever reason, even if he couldn't quite see them. And with the passing of each day, the chance that he wouldn't be killed at a later date only grew. He didn't really have anything to lose.

_And what do you have to live for?_

No, that wasn't true. He loved being alive and he wasn't about to give up so easily.

He did have murky doubts about traveling with Abruzzi in one coffin.

_Oh well. He who laughs last laughs longest._

***

They needed some more time to rent a car suitable for transporting a coffin. By the evening of the next day they were able to leave Booneville and head south on route 71. They didn't have to worry much until the state boundary, and he and John sat on either side of the long wooden box, upholstered in black crepe and satin rosettes. Bagwell didn't really understand, why they bothered—especially taking into account that they had to smear it in soil to look realistic. In his opinion, they should have found a tattered sheet and just used that.

"Well, Mr. Devout, better start praying that no cop takes it into his head to lift the lid. Two birds in the nest instead of one, and I don't think I can convincingly pretend to be your grieving necrophile-relative, who doesn't want to part with his favorite uncle even in a coffin."

Abruzzi gave him such a dark look that Bagwell nearly became convinced that he should rid everyone of the problem and just jump out of the car himself, but then he reached for the rosary and really began to count it, to calm down. Theodore was always intrigued by these sudden bouts of religiosity, always so incongruous with John's cruel, impulsive nature as a whole. It reminded him of crusaders from medieval times, praying to atone for the sin of killing during battle…

"I wonder, Bagwell… Do you ever shut up?"

"When I sleep," he answered emphatically.

A second, even darker look was already clearly indicating advice to fall asleep at once. The air in the back of the car suddenly seemed so dense that T even thought he was going to suffocate. It was time to stop aggravating John, since he seemed to have no sense of humor. Theodore nodded, obediently sat himself back into the corner of the car's rear compartment, hugging his knees, and a few minutes later was really nodding off into that nervous kind of nap where every unexpected ray of light seems like an explosion and every sound that stands out from the background noise is as stark as a gunshot inside your head. 

The Mafioso watched him for some time, then squeezed the cross in his hand and whispered a prayer, not noticing how he was mentally transported to the day his daughter was born. Sylvia was so embarrassed that his firstborn wasn't a boy, even wanted to apologize, but then saw how her husband, shaking from nervousness, took the small wrapped up bundle into his arms, looking questioningly at the wrinkled little red face. God… the first few weeks, Nicole seemed like some alien creature to him, not sure why she had entered their lives. He couldn't come to terms with the fact that he, he was the father, and that this awkward creature would one day grow up into a beauty like Sylvia…

"Johnny, we're coming to a roadblock." 

The knock that came into the division that separated them from the front part of the car woke Bagwell up, and he was already opening the lid of the coffin.

"Come on, get in," T ordered.

He followed, settling comfortably on top and pulling the lid closed. If these were the promised 170 pounds of Alabama flesh, they were only uncomfortable at first. Then Theodore shifted, fit himself to John's body better, and it became easy and even comfortable—to the surprise of Abruzzi, who always assumed that two men could never fit into a close space together. The nose of the man lying on top of him was somewhere around the level of his neck, and John once again distinctly sensed the moist warm breath on his skin. What a trap! This fucker managed to get him excited—not doing much of anything, not using any tricks, he was certain of it. Once again.

_What the fuck. I'm not some fucking homo, after all!_

Attempts to bring himself under control only resulted in him focusing on his condition, getting more aroused. Enough for the man on top of him to feel it. At least, John was sure that it was impossible not to feel it… but Bagwell didn't seem to react, and the Italian soon remembered-- it was perfect natural, after all, lying side by side… So it turns out that the professional prison homo didn't even pay it any attention, but he, a family man, was preoccupied with this kind of thing?

_It's normal…_

He decided that now. But when they had to detour and had to stay huffing and puffing in the coffin for two hours, accidentally running into a police patrol along the way, Abruzzi regretted not having thrown Theodore out of the car earlier.

***

Jake petted the coffin fondly, imagining how it was for his boss to be inside with a man he despises. There was something in this out of the black humor of O'Connelly's Irish ancestors. Closing the small aperture he turned back to the steering wheel, glancing at Coniglio. The other was obviously nervous. Jake himself was calm, even started whistling a tune. It wasn't every day he got to put his boss -- even if he was a childhood friend-- into a coffin. A small pleasure.

"If we get caught, I'm offing John myself," Fred stated dourly, washing a Vivex capsule down with a Coke.

"I think it's too early to plan out our deaths." Jake shoved him playfully.

"Go fuck yourself!"

While pulling the heavy coffin into the back of the car, Fred bloodied his thumb-- the end of it quickly blossoming with a purple-violet swelling and ached with every clumsy movement now, as if his finger was being hit with small electric shocks.

O'Connelly was whistling "Come on, baby, light my fire" as they weaved on the wet highway through the rain, passing cars rushing to get out of town at the end of the week. Finally he went quiet, frowning as he wheeled out and stopped on the highway shoulder.

"Good day, sir," he greeted the stout cop, who was hiding under a tent-like rainjacket.

The cop was obviously tired and was only dreaming of coffee and donuts, and a fried beefsteak.

"Papers," he barked, not friendly.

Their papers were in order, but a tired policeman is worse than a mother-in-law, as everyone knows.

"Whatcha transporting?"

He was letting out his words unwillingly, obviously not wanting to waste energy at the end of his workday, and was drilling such a look into Fred that Jake began to doubt whether their ploy would work.

"One lady from Florida, sir, asked us to bring the corpse of her relative so that, well… as they say, so he'd be a bit closer to her…"

Where did the smooth Chicago accent go—Jake spoke in bass, nasally, a true inheritor of many generations of New York dockers… He thrust the document to the cop's face and-- while the fat ambassador of the law wheezed and tried to make out the handwritten scrawlings by the dim evening light-- turned to his partner.

"Listen, if you fuck up and throw everything off, we won't survive. Either of us."

He spoke barely audibly, but the Italian quickly nodded to indicate that he understood. O'Connelly could seem sociable, gentle, a simple guy, but he was capable of killing swiftly and silently. 

"So you're hearse drivers…"

The cop wrinkled his nose and gave back the document using only two fingers, as if he was afraid to dirty himself. He waved them on.

"As soon as you've gone far enough, turn off the road," Fred muttered, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

The need to empty his bladder became absolutely unbearable during the time of the traffic stop, and Coniglio gratefully smiled when his partner nodded.

"And what are we gonna do with Johnny? Should we knock?"

"I'll let them out when we're parked…"

The Irishman liked his boss's plan less and less. If only he knew, to what degree Abruzzi didn't like it, the question of whether to keep traveling with T-Bag would have become a lot more debatable…

 

* One of the main Catholic prayers. "Lamb of God, you who take on the sins of the world, have mercy upon us."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone reading this, thanks for your patience. I translate when I have time. I don't have a beta interested in this fandom, so if you're reading anyway and would like to beta, please let me know. I'm trying to do my best in the time I have.
> 
> Just to reiterate, this story does not use S2 and onwards, so T-Bag's backstory is somewhat different than canon Prison Break. Although he's still been sexually abused by his father, as far as I can tell, and badly prone to Stockholm Syndrome D:

This time they climbed out of the coffin as soon as Jake opened it—disheveled, somewhat agitated—and sat apart as far as possible. Even Bagwell had not been prepared for John reacting like that to their imposed intimacy.

_An Italian, figures. Turns out their temperament is hereditary…_

And now all Bagwell could do was sit in his corner, trying to guess what Abruzzi will do first: kill or rape you. To his own surprise, T discovered that he was finding the situation amusing, enthralling even. He enjoyed getting on John's nerves in prison, but there it wasn't even half as entertaining as it was do it here, now. He had heard somewhere that people who are prone to taking risks and going out of their way to create life-threatening situations are called adrenaline junkies. A spurt of adrenaline into the bloodstream was for these people like a line of coke. A sort of thrill began to awaken in Bagwell—heavy but unstoppable, like an accelerating freight train. And it wasn't only thrill.

"Abruzzi" brand dynamite was made well, by masters of their craft. He was packaged in a wrapping of affected disinterest. But inside the outer layer, inaccessible to inclement weather from the outside, hatred, rage, and a stubborn desire were stored alongside something else—corrosive and persistently eating away at the outer layer from within, layer by layer. Bagwell had no name for that substance. John could have identified this venom, had he been able to analyze his own actions. Yet the only thing he was still able to do was keep slipping into a scorching darkness and try to stay on the edge, try to preserve the last shreds of his sanity.

Two hours passed. The rain stopped. It smelled of wet asphalt, dust, and that special spicy evening scent that made your head reel and encouraged you into small follies. The sound in their ears wasn't leaving, drowning out even the noise of the engine. But when it did taper off now and then, they could hear Jake singing while driving. He always sang, as long as Abruzzi had known him: in the shower, in the kitchen, behind the wheel. Any relatively free time, and even on the job, O'Connelly would whistle a tune, hum something under his nose, or belt it outright. They nicknamed him Maestro in their group—and the name stuck ever since.

More time having passed, the car stopped, then started again. Fred opened the small window in the partition and handed over Cokes, coffee and burgers in a greasy paper bag.

"We'll be in Columbus by nine. Should we stop?"

"No," Abruzzi grumbled. "Let's stop a few hours later in Tuscaloosa."

Bagwell looked at his traveling companion intently but said nothing, and it was fruitless to wonder what he was thinking about. John was almost sure that Theodore often didn't know what he was thinking about either. He could of course ask, but the Italian was not confident he was going to get an answer to that question. He sighed and carefully moved back the heavy curtain. It would have been nice to stop in Columbus, but they had to hurry…

John crumpled the bag with the burger wrappers and put it under the pillow in the coffin. Bagwell just managed to put the coffee cup holder out of sight when he found himself getting pushed into the cramped space without ceremony. Abruzzi flopped down on top of him and closed the lid.

"John, you're gonna crush me, you big galoot!" the Alabamian croaked out in protest.

John quickly shut his mouth with the palm of his hand. T would have burst out laughing, if he could have, even though the situation clearly didn't call for it. From the side—if anyone could have seen them in that moment—it probably looked funny. Soon it was no longer funny. Neither of them could see a thing in the darkness, but all their other senses pricked up to maximum. The fresh scent of sawed wood, the oily smell of the greasy paper, the musk of each other's bodies… Theodore began trembling from this mixture, and he really wanted to crawl away, before Abruzzi realized what was happening. He even started, giving into the reflexive impulse, but John immediately pressed him back in place, taking his hand off his face.

"Hey, Big Italy, take it easy on m—"

Bagwell shut up, not having finished and afraid to move. The Italian grasped his throat with such violence that not only could he not speak, but even breathing became impossible. Theodore wheezed quietly, grabbing air with his mouth, trying to tear the Italian's fingers off his neck. John finally released him, realizing that death struggles will only bring more attention.

"You see, sir, it's just the coffin mentioned in the papers…"

Bagwell and Abruzzi both froze. The latter in such an uncomfortable pose that you could even feel it. T put his hand on Abruzzi's nape, forcing him to lower himself down and press foreheads.

"Could I see what's inside the coffin?"

"Sir, I'm sorry. I don't have the right… You shouldn't do it, there's a stiff in there, after all, it'll stink…"

The two "stiffs" lying in the coffin were doig their utmost to listen, guessing at what was going on outside and what they'll have to do in the next moment. Bagwell licked his lips nervously out of habit, touching his neighbor's lips in passing, but neither one of them paid any attention to that.

"On top of that, my client will have every cause to sue you in court," Jake continued confidently. "You understand right? A rich woman, her own whims…"

"What…" Abruzzi merely moved his lips to indicate his bewilderment.

"Shh," T-Bag touched his mouth with his own without really thinking.

The door closed, the engine of the policecar started, and then the hearse also started moving. It became unbearable to keep lying in the box. Abruzzi wasn't moving a muscle. Bagwell could only guess how much time he still had left to live, before this damned Italian disembowels him like a Christmas turkey. But instead of that he heard a creak, and he felt a breeze run across his face. John clambered out and reached for the coffee. His hands were shaking.

_Made it through after all?_

T wasn't in a hurry to leave the coffin. He still couldn't believe that the Mafioso simply sat down on the floor, not looking at him, and drank his coffee, closing his eyes.

_In reality, he already put the knife under your ribs, and this is just some hallucination right before death._

"Bagwell, are you planning to stay in the coffin? I can arrange that for you, if you really want."

Even more puzzled, T-Bag tumbled out of the box and closed the lid.

A warm wind was coming in through the opened up small window.

Bagwell felt almost at home. And in a way he was home…

Sweet home Alabama…

***

They got to Tuscaloosa just before midnight. To everyone's surprise, Abruzzi asked for two separate rooms. Bagwell reasonably assumed that he would be sent to one of these rooms with Fred or Jake, and even prepared to put up with the boring, paranoid Coniglio. He even expected to find himself locked in in the morning, while the three others would be fleeing, having already turned him in to the police. But he turned out to be completely unprepared for what followed their rushed dinner.

John escorted his two underlings out and slammed the door with such a force that rattled the glass in the windows, and sent a picture on the wall falling, its cheap frame shattering. The Italian came back in and, not saying a word, grabbed the beer out of Bagwell's hand and put the bottle aside. T was watching all of these proceedings without much enthusiasm. When Abruzzi roughly lifted Bagwell out of the armchair by grabbing his shirt, he felt a nasty, sticky fear surge up from deep within, like it did so many years ago…

"John?"

Seeing his eyes up close, Bagwell thought about how cold they looked, and how it was impossible to read in them what was going to happen next. The uncertainty created a feeling in his body, as if a pipe had been brought up right against his heart, and it was now being sucked up into a vacuum.

"John, what—"

The kiss was a painful bite, and his mouth filled with a repulsive, salty-coppery taste. John practically smashed him into the wall, shoving the back of his head and his shoulderblades right into the hard surface. T-Bag seized his wrists to avoid falling, although it was perfectly clear that he was unlikely to even budge, being pressed into the wall by this bruiser. Fear and uncertainty was replaced by a wave of heated, muffled arousal, which made his face flush and his ears stuff up. In his head there was only one thought—what am I doing?!—darting around in a panic from corner to corner, invigorated by hormones.

"What are you doing?..."

He clawed into John's shoulders, helplessly sagging in his arms when the next

(bite)

kiss was delivered into his neck – the place where it was so pleasant to feel someone else's lips, tongue, hands… In lieu of an answer, the Italian threw Bagwell on the bed, silently pulling off his clothes, just as silently flipping him over on his stomach…

Dazed, Bagwell didn't even struggle to get away, even though the alarm coursing through his body threatened to expand into something much more formidable. And then the chance to get away vanished, and he stifled a sob, biting his lip. Pain was something he never took easily, and John practically rammed into the narrow, dry passage, not bothering with even a preliminary stretch, let alone any kind of lubrication. And what else did he expect, really?

Theodore moaned weakly, trying to break free, to crawl away from the pain tearing at him from the inside, but Abruzzi already stopped moving, grabbing T's hips, panting heavily. T-Bag breathed in deeply, making the most of the pause.

_If you're being raped, at least try to relax and enjoy yourself…_

The zipper of John's jeans was biting into his skin, preventing him from thinking about something else and relaxing the muscles still straining under the uninvited intrusion. The rest of his body was already burning and pulling from within—from the desire and aching discomfort that had come to replace pain. Imagine that, he had even come to miss these sensations… Finally, he couldn't stand it any longer, and bent backwards, clutching the bedcovers in his fists.

"Get on with it already, motherfucker!..."

Abruzzi, who had just been pondering what it was that he was doing here exactly, breathed in hoarsely and pushed forward, his balls smacking loudly against T's skinny ass. This slap sounded unnaturally loud in the silence, and served as a gunshot to athletes on a starting line. It was funny, but Bagwell had never imagined until now that you could fuck like that-- silently, in a turbulent, frenzied rage of a long-suppressed desire, not thinking of anything except the prickly burning and freezing shivers under your skin, burning in an avalanche of a lust melting your consciousness and arriving adrenaline, forcing you to experience every movement, every noise with a heightened, almost painful clarity. And to want even more of it, despite the resonating pain in a body grown unused to it, fiery flashes before your eyes and cruel fingers, leaving bruises across your whole body in their wake…

(Oh yes, child…)

Theodore shifted forward, forcing his partner to follow and get up on the bed, then bent over, grasping his own swollen cock, squeezed, rubbing the head between his fingers… He couldn't stay quiet now—to hell with it! Half-forgotten feelings of helplessness, defenseless submission were wonderfully electrifying, quickening his blood, forcing T-Bag to mewl, almost cat-like, to dig his

(claws)

fingers into the bed, and moan into the crook of his elbow, remembering the paper-thin walls of motels and someone's pride. And riling up that same someone more and more, compelling him to push in deeper and more brutally…

Bagwell didn't notice more pain. Sticky warmth was already dripping down, smelling of copper, and Abruzzi's motions were becoming lighter and quicker. He alternated, thrusting Theodore into the plaintively creaking bed, then hauling him back onto himself, pulling out the tender skin behind his cock, smeared in blood.

Suffocating in a shout, the Alabamian started shaking, splashing semen out in sporadic bursts onto his hand and the bedcovers. Behind him, John echoed with a heavy, satisfied sigh, adding viscous pearly smears to the scarlet rivulets running down T's thighs.

Another moment and both

(died)

stilled, breathing hard, one biting down on his own wrist, the other with his head tipped back, now wonderfully light and empty, as it always felt when he finally managed to get rid of a nagging thought that had persistently driven him mad.

The mattress groaned when Abruzzi slumped forward, forcing Bagwell to stretch out across the down blanket. A dog was barking somewhere near the road. This "Woof! Woof! Woof!" sounded as if the hound was synchronizing with a timer. Like the bell toll of a small roadside church in a town where someone died… John felt as if each bark was sinking him deeper and deeper into a giant cotton blanket. He couldn't remember a time when sex had been so satisfying, so utterly draining.

"I wonder… you aware that there's such things in the world as condoms?"

Bagwell's hoarse, preternaturally calm voice pierced through the blanket and forcefully pulled the Italian back into reality. Theodore pushed him off, slinked off the bed and headed off to the shower, unsteady on his feet. John's consciousness was slowly becoming aware of a heavy smell in the room—a mixture of musk, sweat, semen, blood, and shit… He forced himself to get up, turn on the light and open a window. The bedcovers were slowly absorbing the last of the crimson and white drops. Grimacing, he pulled the dirty rag off onto the floor and, having verified that the sheets were still clean, headed off to the shower, completely forgetting that T-Bag was in there. He was very surprised when the other man asked him to get out and give him a few minutes. It was impossible to see anything behind the translucent glass of the shower door, but the voice gave away that its owner was trembling.

If John Abruzzi had not spent his life fleeing his own conscience with such speed, he probably would never have ended up in Fox River in the first place. But here, in Alabama, it finally overtook him. He was hard-pressed to explain why he felt so bad—because he hadn't finished Bagwell off earlier, when he had the chance, or maybe because he hurt him, or maybe because he broke his own code of conduct… in any case, when he came out of the shower, the cause of his anguish was already sleeping

(or playing dead)

and was no doubt seeing something pleasant, judging from the smile playing across his lips. The necessity to say something, to do something was postponed to some vague later time. The Italian lay down heavily on his half of the bed and even wasn't even surprised when Theodore soon pushed his nose near his neck.

_Does he have honey smeared there, or what?..._

***

Bagwell woke up abruptly, passing out of sleep and into waking in an instant, as usual. There was a half-hearted sort of grey mist outside the window. Grimacing, he got up, put his clothes on and took out a notepad and pencil, and spent some time writing something in concentration. He put the torn out page on the pillow, picked up the light rucksack on his shoulder, and left, quietly closing the door behind him. The night was retreating with light footsteps, dragging all the ragged shadows behind it. The sun was sending glimmering rays along the highway fog, floating over the shrubs and bushes. Theodore took a cigarette out of the crumpled pack and brought a trembling lighter flame to its end. He didn't really smoke. But sometimes it was just the thing to do-- roll a small paper cylinder between your fingers, knead the tobacco, strike a match or roll that little wheel, fill you lungs with smoke and slowly exhale-- feeling how pleasantly your head starts to spin with just one drag…

A giant truck emerged out of the fog and Theodore waved it down. Perfect. When truck drivers take hitchhiker off the road, they count on talking, and he was in obvious need to talk to someone right now. About anything-- just to avoid thinking about what he should do now.

"Hey there," T-Bag said, throwing his pack onto the seat. "My name's Tom. I need to go to Birmingham."

"This is your lucky day, pal. I'm passing five miles north of it. From around here?"

"Yeah, born and bred there." He shook the driver's hand and pulled the truck door closed.

The driver was Gerald Tyler Scott. He went by G-Ty among his friends. He'd been married eighteen years and loved his wife, two kids, and his dog Raff very much. He was tall, burly, and very talkative-- pretty typical as far as truck drivers go. He did drive his travel buddy almost to where he needed to go without asking any unnecessary questions. Bagwell had no issue entertaining truck drivers, and he could simultaneously hold a conversation while thinking about his own matters, because the conversation had nothing to do with him. And he had a lot to think about on his own. What happened the previous night was just a consequence, an inevitable outcome of the game they started-- not to say that it wasn't enjoyable in its own way. But he clearly understood that Abruzzi could have just as easily maimed or killed him. He knew that if he was going to flee from Birmingham, to Canada or Mexico, now John wouldn't look for him himself, but send his people, to avoid any temptations. He could come back, as he promised. He wanted to come back.

_Never thought I was one for masochism._

***

Not opening his eyes, John reached to the other half of the bed out of habit, before he was fully awake and able to curse himself for the habit (when did he have time to get so used to it, honestly?). But that fidgety psycho was nowhere to be found and instead a piece of paper crinkled under John's hand. A memory flashed through his head of an old game that he used to like playing with his wife and children on Christmas. They would hide their presents around the house and in the morning each of them would get a sheet of paper with instructions to help search for their gifts. Why did he remember that? He wouldn't see his wife or children for a while yet, if at all. That was probably why he remembered.

He read the note over several times.

_"Went to Birmingham. Meet at 2 o'clock in Montgomery, at the highway 331 exit."_

Bagwell's handwriting turned out to be unexpectedly appealing—clear, slender, with sweeping curls on some of the letters.

John tried to recall, what it was that could have forced Theodore to do this.

_… you killed him, after all…_

Great timing he found, to visit the dead!

Abruzzi crumpled the note angrily. A knock at the door forced him to collect himself. He pulled on his pants and feeling for the gun in his coat, he pulled the handle.

Fred was standing in the hallway, unshaven, holding two small cups of coffee.

If his boss was capable of such a thing, he would have immediately canonized Coniglio a saint.

"Listen, Johnny…"

He hesitated, and Abruzzi used that opportunity to take one of the cups.

"Come in."

"Hm… and where's Theodore?"

"We're alone."

"Well, in reality, Jake and I were thinking here… and decided that… it'd be best to ask you yourself…"

Knowing his underling's favorite way of getting around to a topic of conversation from afar, as if wrangling a fearful caribou, the gangster used the opportunity to put on the rest of his clothes and seat himself in the armchair, sipping his morning beverage. The coffee turned out badly brewed, burned, but at least not instant.

"We were just wondering, why did you drag this psycho along with us…"

He expected the question. And still he couldn't think of a single way to answer it.

"Maybe, while he's out, we'll just clear out quietly? Really, Johnny. You can't even stand him."

Abruzzi sneered-- his people really knew him well.

Outside, in the motel parking lot, you could hear the arrival of a powerful motor of a Harley.

A fly was flying crazy circles underneath the lamp and Fred kept following it with his eyes involuntarily, apparently hypnotized by its pointless flightpaths.

It's an interesting characteristic of human psyche—even a minute ago, John was thinking about moving on without Theodore, especially taking into account what happened that night and the lack of any guarantee that it wouldn't happen again. But as soon as the question was raised by someone who had nothing with the internal conflict between him and T-Bag… an arrogant little worm of opposition crawled out and sat on its owner's shoulder, rudely smiling at Fred who could not see it.

"I've decided that he could be useful to us."

"Johnny, we've known each other for a long time, right? Can you just tell me, heart to heart, what this unpredictable killer could be useful for?"

How many times had he posed the same question to himself? Ten? Twenty? A hundred?

"I owe him my life. I think I have about as many reasons to trust him as not to trust him."

_I wonder what I would have done had someone told me a couple of weeks ago that I would be defending Bagwell?_

And moreover what would he have done with any person who'd take it into his head to guess that he could fuck another guy?

Thought by thought, the previous night was coming back to him.

"We're leaving in twenty minutes," he said in a hoarse voice, trying to clear out the memories. "Our next stop is Montgomery."

Fred shrugged. If Abruzzi decided on something, only a typhoon could take him off his course.

"Did he bewitch you or something…" Fred grumbled behind his boss's back as he headed into the bathroom.

Bewitched… more like drove insane! Really, otherwise he'd have to agree with Coniglio.

John was glumly transfixed by his own reflection in the mirror, even as he put shaving cream into his palm. Bagwell was quickly becoming an obsession. He was like something out of the tales of Voodoo, a creature out of Baron Samedi's entourage-- who was, little by little, transforming the world John knew into the strange, dark mosaic of his own world, something unrecognizable.

Vivaldi's "Spring" suddenly sounded from the adjoining room. His cellphone. For a whole minute, John fought an irrational confidence that Bagwell had turned them into the cops. But Bagwell didn't have, and couldn't have had this number.

And of course it turned out to be someone he didn’t want to talk to all.

"We organized a hydroplane for you. You can use the little house of our mutual friend. It's remote, near the beach. You'll have to take a boat into town to get food out there."

"Thanks."

"You'll thank us later. When everything's quieted down we'll send your family over there."

Sylvia... the kids... basically, all he could wish for.

"What'll I have to do?"

"What do you take us for? Can't we give you a small Christmas present. It's a family holiday. And we're family, aren't we?"

A Christmas present...

John had a persistent feeling that someone was trapping him, but couldn't figure out who the trappers would be, and for what purpose. When he gave up trying to figure it out, the feeling only grew worse. By the time they left the motel, John had half a mind to kill the next person he met.

***

Bagwell stayed at the cemetery just long enough to run his hand over the cool roughhewn stone, grit his teeth and resolve to throw out all his memories of the past.

Looking around, he left the cemetery and headed straight for the pharmacy. The cashier working the counter at that early hour was obviously bored and looking for customers. He was very disappointed that Theodore only needed a bottle of antiseptic, lube, and a a bar of chocolate. When thirty year old Patrick Callaghan handed all of that over to the customer, he thanked him politely and walked out, leaving Patrick to sigh and think about how he'll return home to his empty house, make himself dinner and watch the Sox game he'd recorded. How he'd lie down in his empty bed and, at the end of it all, fall sleep, dreaming that the next day that cute girl Maggie Curls will visit him at the pharmacy and buy a package of condoms. And he'll watch her as she leaves, and then later in the bathroom, rub one out remembering how her skirt was wrapped around her pert ass.

T-Bag whistled as he made his way to the nearest fast food joint and slipped into restroom, past a homeless guy reeking of sweat and piss, and who was standing around trying to figure out which was the floor or ceiling. It didn't take long to bring himself into order. Then T-Bag took a while to stare at his own reflection. The mirror had a long crack running across it. There were a few flies on it, and its corners were being eaten away by fungus. He had a similar looking one back home.

_When he sees you again, he's going to shoot you, no better than a stray dog..._

Better that way, honestly... Better that way than set out into complete uncertainty now, especially since he had no idea where to go. The world suddenly started to seem too big. He understood that now was a perfect time to turn himself into the police. Let it all go. Go back into the congested, fenced in little garden, and to never leave it again. He'd paid a visit to Mrs. Hollander first thing out of the pen. What else was left really...

_No._

It was as if Jimmy said it in his own head, and the voice was as crystal clear as if his cousin had really been standing next to him.

The smell in the restroom-- an acidic, stale smell of vomit, piss, and rusted taps-- suddenly became unbearable, and he quickly ran out into the street, the drunkard losing his footing as he rushed past him.

He hitched a ride and dozed off on the way-- even had a dream. There was a sketch on a table before him. The sketch was of Theodore Bagwell, at the age of about thirteen. He leaned over it and started erasing it from the white, porous paper.

_Grandpa Freud would have been thrilled to see you now..._

The eraser was making a noticeable noise, smelled pleasantly of rubber warming up from the friction, just like in childhood, when he managed to have time to draw alone: cars, planes, weapons, some kind of monsters, but even more often his family, his neighbors, teachers, classmates.

Jim would sometimes get into terrible rows with his sister and mother. He wanted his cousin to get out of that house, with the sheets that were grey even after laundering, with the constant smell of whiskey, beer, or the stench of alcohol breath, with swearing and a bunch of guys visiting. His mother needed Theodore to quit school and start working. He knew it too-- you needed to work to survive. So every time when his mother would complain, seeing the pencil in his hand, he'd obediently close the notebook. Until he ran away...

The eraser whispered. His image was disappearing, ceding room to a different image, also one of Bagwell. But this version already had greys, folds and wrinkles plowing through his face, and his eyes now housing a guarded cynicism.

_I can be any kind of person, Johnny. Whatever is called for. But what about you?_

"This is as far as I go. I have to turn off here."

"Thanks for the lift." T-Bag smiled, jumping down out of the trailer.

He waved the trucker off and looked around.

It was a few blocks to the appointed meeting place. He walked them quickly and silently. Abruzzi

(if he was there at all)

was no doubt ranting and raving. It wasn't worth making him any angrier.

***

They were waiting for him there. There, where they'd agreed, on the very edge of town. That's where the two nervous underlings and their outwardly calm, imperturbable boss were waiting.

_If I make it to Florida alive and not torn to pieces I should count myself lucky..._

One telling glance from John only confirmed the possible splitting of one hypothetical Theodore Bagwell into a spray of very real atoms.

"Abruzzi, I..."

"Get in the car," the Italian hissed through his teeth.

Behind his back, Jake extended his hand to Fred, demanding money he won in a bet.

Theodore was crazy of course, but not crazy enough to wait until the money got handed over to O'Connely. He immediately headed over to the hearse car, slightly regretting that there was no chance to lock himself into the coffin until the very end of the trip. In fact, knowing Abruzzi, Theodore knew that the coffin was only flimsy protection anyway. It would make things convenient for John if he got in there now. The door slammed with such force as if an Apache missile had dropped over his head. He licked his lips nervously, and just as he was about to say something, found himself pressed into the wall of the car, and soon getting all his air cut off.

"You think you can just do whatever you want, you son of a bitch?!"

"John... get your... hands off..." Theodore's voice creaked, struggling for every gulp of air he could take.

The Italian eased his grip up slightly, giving him an opportunity to speak.

"We're civilized people here." T-Bag rubbed his throat. "My cousin was the only person dear to me. I think I'm entitled to visit his grave. And you're the last person who can condemn me for that, by the way. Nobody forced you to wait for me, anyway..."

Abruzzi, breathing heavily, let him go, but put his hands against the walls around him, surrounding his victim. Bagwell's gaze was direct, an accusing gaze that went to his very conscience, the same gaze that followed John in any church from the cross. He couldn't take it and lowered his head, once again astonished by how easily this bastard could find just the right words to change the course of everything and help him escape imminent

(death)

violence.

The echoes of the emotions and sensations of the previous night were preventing him from thinking rationally. John was beginning to understand why the best analysts were those who abstained from sex.

He didn't immediately grasp what the double knock against the wall meant: we're leaving. The car jerked forward and both of them-- Abruzzi and Bagwell behind him-- tumbled to the floor. John's shoulder definitely hit the coffin, and Theodore, judging by the cursing, also did although with his hip, and ended up landing on his traveling companion. Both were hurting, but especially John who had also hit his head.

For a moment they lay there, panting, even as the car gathered speed. Behind the wall they could hear Jake berate Fred for something and then turn a jazz station up to full volume. They were completely oblivious to what was going on behind them in the other compartment.

It wasn't clear who was the first to cross the invisible boundary that they had set up that first night in the tent, and had suddenly violated so recently.

John hadn't kissed anyone like this before—trying to smother, to crumple, to completely and utterly bring someone under his own will.

_You like this? How about **this** \-- still like it?_

Theodore let out a long moan, as if hearing John's unspoken question, rubbing against him with his entire body, as much as he could in those close quarters. Abruzzi thought about what madness this was-- to fuck in the back of a moving car when the people up front could open the partition at any moment, when a patrol could appear on the road. Didn't Theodore understand this was crazy?

Looking into his eyes, John saw that he understood perfectly, and that all this was just firing him up all the more. He grabbed him tighter, pressed him down under himself-- not really angry anymore, just releasing all the tension from that morning now. John's zipper squealed angrily, drowning out the voice of Laura Fabian for a moment-- Fred had changed the station.

Bagwell was impatient, biting Abruzzi on the neck, bringing his attention back to the only thing that mattered. Funny, he even managed to get lube from somewhere... the cool sticky gel didn't smell of anything, and didn't feel great against his straining cock. John spread it around and threw the tube aside just before going into Bagwell to the hilt in one abrupt motion. It seemed that the feeling of complete familiarity with this person was becoming his curse. It was a familiarity regardless of what they had been doing together. That thought put John into an angry frenzy. He gave out a greedy chuckle, snapping his hips forward, shoving his way back and forth through the narrow opening. T-Bag-- who could read his partner's mood by the eyes and seemed to understand him better than anyone had in John's life-- obediently pushed back to meet his motions, arching his back and wrapping his legs around Abruzzi's waist. If this was hurting him, he wasn't letting on.

_**What** , in God's name, was he doing?!_

The sensations became more vivid, and his entire thought process drowned in them.

Having studied Abruzzi pretty extensively in the last few days, the Alabamian knew that letting him think about anything other than sex during the act was suicide. In some ways he was amusingly predictable. It would be endearing if it wasn't for...

Thinking became utterly impossible for Theodore.

_What the hell was this, **how** was John doing this?!_

For T, who had great control over his own body, this was pretty unusual, and almost frightening.

Jake wrestled back control over the radio and turned the jazz back on.

It was pretty fun to fuck to the accompaniment of percussion and saxophones...

And after that, Theodore wouldn't even be able to recall what was playing.

Not long afterwards, Theodore crept out from under John, clenching his teeth.

"You have a handkerchief or something?"

Abruzzi was leaning back against the coffin, still trying to catching his breath, and looked through his pockets mechanically before handing over a folded handkerchief.

"Thanks," Theodore grumbled, sliding it somewhere into his crotch under Abruzzi's puzzled stare.

The jazz behind the wall changed over to R&B, and the car yelped as it changed gears.

"Florida!" O'Connelly cheerily announced to his passengers.

The car had been incredibly hot for a while now, and the back smelled of sweat, burgers-- and now semen too.

_Wonder what exactly our impulsive Italian friend thinks of all this that's been going on here? Can't be anything good..._

Abruzzi was silent, staring at the floor. While T-Bag was fussing around with the handkerchief, he zipped his pants back up and put on his favorite impenetrable mask-- the one Theodore already had grown to absolutely hate. John's head was filled with very unhappy wandering thoughts. It was no wonder, considering that his entire world as he knew it was crumbling before his eyes. The world in which he understood himself, his desires, and his actions. It was as if the tiny island of rational thought was getting submerged in its entirety. He didn't want to choke this cursed Alabamian anymore... to forget his unpleasant sarcastic grin, his neonazi demeanor, his insolence which bordered on insanity, his thin lips and nervous hands. And how

(To all that is holy! This is how you go insane...)

how fucking hot and tight he was down _there._

It could have been Theodore Bagwell's last day on earth, perhaps, had Fred not raised the alarm at that moment, over something that turned out to be nothing at all. It forced them to forget all their turmoil for a moment and hide themselves inside the coffin, lying completely still, straining to hear sounds coming from the outside.

Neither Theodore nor John could understand how it happened.

Both of them fell asleep, right there in the coffin, and slept on all the way to Fort Lauderdale...

***

Sylvia had never had any doubts about her husband-- never from the very moment he had started doting on her, in his own stubborn and forthright manner. He never gave her cause to doubt or distrust him, but this call pricked something particular in her nerves...

"John, I don't understand... what could you have forgotten in the Bahamas when we have the chance to fly back to Sardinia?"

"Dear, we don't have much time. Let's not waste it."

She could distinctly catch the tone in his voice, full of impatient displeasure, that would appear when he was doing something he didn't like.

"In a bit more time our mutual friend will arrange a flight for you and the kids to join me. Be ready for that, but not for another month or so."

She heard the click of a phone getting turned off.

Beeps.

No goodbye, not a word of love. That was John, alright.

She respected him, and recognized his right to silence and making his own rules. She valued what he did for her and the children. But there was always a fear in the corner of her heart, that sooner or later Abruzzi would make a mistake-- one which would expose her to the blow, no matter how much he loved them all. What could she do then? How to protect the children? What will become of them if John messes up one day? This fear had been tormenting her for ten year now, and today spilled out of her outside, eyeing everything up with its hungry yellow eyes.

"Mommy, who called?"

The insatiable gaze of the fear stopped its wandering as the little boy entered the kitchen, and Sylvia managed to get a hold of herself, and to chase back the monster back inside from where it crawled, and lock the door behind it. She took the boy up into her arms, sat him on her knees and hugged him. The touch of his small body, smelling of the milk and cookies, and the clean scent of a child's sweat and shampoo gave her strength again.

"It was Father."

"Is he coming?"

"No. But we're probably going to go see him soon."

"Great. He promised to fish with me..."

"When?"

"When we got taken to Dad, and then we lived with Uncle Philly..."

"Mr. Falzone," Sylvia robotically corrected him.

"Yeah, remember?"

How could she explain to him that Philipp was no angel, and that he and his sister were a hair's breadth away from death then? Another year and the children will start asking questions. The right questions, and hard ones to answer. What will she tell them?

"I remember, Johnny."

***

She found out accidentally.

John Abruzzi and Antonio Fibonacci were still the best of friends and often drank beer together and watched soccer in the den. She was pregnant with little Johnny at the time, and hummed to herself as he made pasta in the kitchen. Her husband usually didn't pick up the phone while the game was on, and she picked it up out of habit. She didn't have the chance to say anything, but didn't have time to place back the receiver either.

She stood in the middle of her bright white kitchen, without the strength to breathe or move.

And she listened...

"... I hope you understand..."

"...Sylvia is going to give birth soon and I wouldn't want... and if I'm going to do this with Fibonacci, and then he backs out and goes to the cops with this, you understand what will happen then?"

"If we notice that he's not trustworthy, we can get rid of him later."

"... I'll remember..."

"... I'll give you a few guys."

"Good."

"I'm counting on you."

Sylvia put down the receiver, once she heard beeps. She returned to the table, continuing to cut the dough into long ribbons, as before. John came in several minutes later, carrying empty bottles.

"We have to talk."

She said it so quietly that John had barely heard her. He looked at her, and the corner of his mouth twitched downward.

"When Tony's gone."

That evening he told her everything. Or at least, everything he had the right to tell his own wife-- that she understood. After that they made love and both had the feeling that something had changed, as if there was another link now, that bound them more strongly together. She never talked to John about work again...

***

"It's late. Why aren't you in bed?"

"I don't wanna. Read me a story?"

Sylvia wasn't in the mood to read stories. She grabbed a book and led her son upstairs, to his and Nicole's room.

She'd have time to tell John everything that was tearing at her from within right now. He'd have to hear her out, whether he wanted to or not.

***

Theodore was sitting on the sand, hugging his knees, watching as the giant orange-red Caribbean sun moved down into the sea. He was still trying to make sense of what had been happening to him in the last month. He wanted to make sense of it to make a decision for himself. What to do next, for example.

Abruzzi managed to surprise him. Instead of killing him or leaving him in Fort Lauderdale, the Italian had taken him with him...

"You'll be staying with us." John said this as he was trying to open the door but the lock wasn't cooperating, and his tone ended up sounding like a command.

"I don't have the slightest desire to deal with the consequences of you killing someone and then getting caught. Sooner or later someone will ask you where I might be..."

Theodore decided it wasn't the time to mock this line of thinking. They both knew that the cops would be unlikely to interrogate an escaped psychopath.

"And how're you planning to explain the fact that I'm staying with you?"

"My people just need to know I have plans for you. What plans, they don't have to know."

"You know I'm not talking about your underlings."

"Well, the higher-ups might actually want to use you for something, on some occasion."

_And then get rid of you in short order, no doubt._

Bagwell read this thought from Abruzzi's expression as well as he read most things from him.

And once again didn't say a word.


End file.
